UFC champion Ilia Topuria takes aim at Dagestani fighters: 'All the competitive fights, they lose'

UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria theorizes that Dagestani fighters need to dominate to win.

As Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) angles for a fight against lightweight champ Islam Makhachev (27-1 MMA, 16-1 UFC), he took a shot at fighters from Dagestan.

With Umar Nurmagomedov suffering his first-career loss to bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 311, Topuria claimed that Dagestani fighters need to be the hammer, not the nail in order to win fights.

“None of them have special cardio and special stamina,” Topuria said on the “Full Send Podcast.” “The way they do it, it’s like, if you see fighting any of them, the thing they need when they go inside the octagon, in the first contact, they want to feel that they dominate you. They start to build a confidence that like, ‘I can dominate you, maybe you escape, we go in the striking again, but I felt that I’m stronger than you.’ But if they feel in the first contact, in the first round, that they can’t control you, that it’s very competitive, their head goes down.

“This is what they try to do – to beat you in the earlier rounds, to feel that they can dominate you, that they are stronger than you. This is what they try to do all the time. But when then they realize that it’s not like that, most of the time they lose that kind of fight. All the competitive fights, they lose – all of them. Or you see them dominating everything, like take the people down, dominate them in the ground, or if you see a competitive fight, they lose.”

Makhachev had a close fight with former featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284, but wound up winning a close decision. Bellator lightweight champ Usman Nurmagomedov also had a tough, competitive fight with Paul Hughes last month at PFL Champions Series: Road to Dubai, but was able to prevail.