UFC Vegas 87 results: Umar Nurmagomedov mauls Bekzat Almakhan after surviving early scare, calls out Cory Sandhagen
Umar Nurmagomedov remained undefeated with another lopsided win at UFC Vegas 87 but he actually had to survive arguably the biggest scare of his career thus far.
During an early exchange in the opening round, newcomer Bekzat Almakhan clipped Nurmagomedov with a punch that sent him crashing down to the ground. Nurmagomedov scrambled to grab a leg and eventually got the takedown but it was the first gut-check moment for him since arriving in the UFC.
Outside of that lone punch, Nurmagomedov absolutely mauled Almakhan on the ground, scoring numerous takedowns and just blasting away at him with a nasty barrage of punches and elbows. The final scores read 30-25, 30-26 and 30-26 with Nurmagomedov getting the nod by unanimous decision.
Afterwards, Nurmagomedov addressed the knockdown and admits he didn’t know what exactly happened until he recovered with the takedown to put Almakhan on his back.
“I didn’t see this punch,” Nurmagomedov said. “I didn’t understand [what happened]. I hope it was going to be more easy. He’s a monster. I almost not killed him but I hurt him. I thought I will take him down and choke him and it will be an easy fight but this guy is a monster. He’s tough and he tried to kill me.”
Outside of that brief knockdown in the opening round, it was all Nurmagomedov, especially as he landed multiple takedowns with Almakhan just unable to stop his wrestling.
Once the fight hit the floor, Nurmagomedov advanced his position to take the back where he locked on the body triangle as he started fishing for submissions. With just over a minute remaining in the opening round, Nurmagomedov ended up on top of Almakhan where he began raining down punches and elbows from inside the guard.
As the second round got underway, Nurmagomedov made the most of the restart and showed confidence in his hands as he caught Almakhan with a hard shot before dropping for a takedown. Nurmagomedov took the mount and began hammering away with more ground and pound but Almakhan kept finding a way to scramble free and get back to his feet.
That only led to more wrestling from Nurmagomedov, who seemingly couldn’t miss with his takedowns and Almakhan’s resistance to stop him started to fade.
With five minutes remaining, Nurmagomedov dragged Almakhan to the canvas again where he once again battered the UFC newcomer with punches in bunches. Nurmagomedov muscled Almakhan around on the ground as he wrapped up the victory in lopsided fashion following that early scare at the start of the fight.
Now 17-0 in his career, Nurmagomedov hopes that he’ll get to revisit the fight he was scheduled to take last year before an injury forced him to miss the remainder of 2023.
“I want a fight with Cory Sandhagen,” Nurmagomedov said. “It’s going to be a contender fight. I wasn’t here 100 percent. Maybe I was just 50 percent, I’m serious.”