Usman Nurmagomedov's plan to emulate cousin Khabib's vicious Conor McGregor win in Paul Hughes PFL showdown

01/23/2025 12:44 AM

Usman Nurmagomedov wants to emulate the most famous victory of his cousin Khabib’s storied career on Saturday night.

Back in 2018 when the legendary UFC champion defeated Conor McGregor, his cousin was just 20-years-old and had just made his professional MMA debut. He watched on as Khabib was engulfed in one of the sport’s most bitter feuds ever with the Irishman, before winning by submission when they did fight.

Now, he gets his own shot at a career-making feud as he takes on Ireland’s own Paul Hughes on Saturday night in the latest defence of his PFL title. The pair are not nearly as bitter rivals as Khabib and McGregor, but the needle has been noticeable as they prepare for fight night in Dubai.

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Usman Nurmagomedov vs Paul Hughes is starting to get personal

Throughout the build-up to a fight being billed as ‘Ireland v Dagestan 2’, it had seemed almost laughable that there were any similarities between this fight and the infamous UFC 229 main event. At one point Usman Nurmagomedov even noted that he was starting to like Hughes during joint media appearances.

However, things have changed this week as the pair’s trash talk begins to boil over. They faced off in front of the Burj Khalifa to launch fight week, and the Russian offered his rival to fight there and then on the street.

“It’s not personal but we are just promoting this fight,” Nurmagomedov told Bloody Elbow in an exclusive chat. “He tried to speak about ‘a few days’ or something like that and I said ‘if you want we can do every day’.

“Even there, when we were facing off, I wanted it. He began saying like ‘Saturday, we’ll see’ or something like that. But where I come from if someone calls you to fight, you don’t wait for four days. If he said ‘let’s go’ I would smash his face there.”

This clearly irked Hughes, who claims that it is moving beyond the realms of fight promotion to attempt to derail a photo opp for a street fight. The pair are both making sizeable purses which would be affected by any sort of contact before the bout itself.

“To me he just seems kind of shook up,” Hughes told Bloody Elbow. “I’m there being my always quietly calm self and he basically offered me up we can go here, like let’s do it and I mean, what the f*** is he talking about? I mean, that’s clearly to me an emotional irrational response.

“And, you know, as I said to him, ‘you’re looking past me’ and he says, ‘who are you?’ 
I said, ‘Exactly’. And that is his problem, and that is going to be the test for him in my eyes on Saturday night.”

Usman Nurmagomedov plans to emulate Khabib Nurmagomedov’s biggest win

Both men have clear memories of where they were when the first Ireland v Dagestan took place. Hughes was in Australia, reeling from the news that after an impressive professional debut that his career may be over due to a broken hand.

“I think I was living in Australia at the time in Sydney,” Hughes recalled. “I remember just the energy around it and how excited people were for that. I mean, Ireland vs Dagestan number one was the biggest event in MMA history.

“We’re not quite there with Ireland vs Dagestan number two, but I’ll tell you what we’re making a good splash at it.”

Usman appeared a little bit less reflective on the evening, but left a chilling warning as he vowed to land a similarly destructive victory. He is not quite the favourite that his cousin was back then, but is believed to be the more likely winner on the night.

“First time, we all see what happened,” he noted in a stoic recollection. “The second time, nothing is going to change.”

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