Umar Nurmagomedov didn't tell team about broken during title fight

Yesterday at 10:57 AM

Umar Nurmagomedov got off to a good start in the UFC 311 bantamweight title fight against champion Merab Dvalishvili, but things quickly went south.  "Young Eagle" suffered a broken hand in the opening round changing the way he approached the rest of the match.  

Nurmagomedov's coach, Javier Mendez, revealed that Nurmagomedov hid the injury from his team during an appearance on Submission Radio.  Had his coaches known, Mendez believes they could have changed game plans and saw success.  After all, he won the first two rounds on two of the judges' scorecards.  

"If he had told me he broke his hand, I would have changed the game plan," Mendez said. "Khabib and I would have changed the game plan completely around because Khabib is a great corner. He's one of the great ones that I've encountered cornering with. So, we could have changed the game plan, but we weren't told. Umar didn't tell us. That just shows you the kind of warrior he is. We would have changed the plan had he told us that. Why would we do what we did, having him throw that broken hand, if we knew he broke his hand? That would be stupid.

"I would have had him kick more. Keep the distance, keep him at a distance, keep kicking because he's a great kicker. But, no, the game plan was to stay inside and pick him apart, and I was wondering what the hell? And he kept putting his head down. He kept putting his head down more than often, and I'm like, 'What the hell?' I go, 'OK, Merab must be that much tougher.' And yeah, he is that tough. But I didn't know that Umar broke his hand. He didn't tell us."