Paul Hughes is pissed.
In January, Hughes and Usman Nurmagomedov put on an absolute barnburner that saw the latter escape with a majority decision victory, retaining his Bellator lightweight title in the process.
Considering how ridiculously competitive and entertaining the fight was, everyone expected the PFL to announce an immediate rematch. Instead, Hughes was forced to go out and get another win, and that’s exactly what he did, starching Bruno Miranda just 42 seconds into their PFL Europe 1 headliner last month in Belfast.
The victory seemingly cemented Hughes’ status as the No. 1 ranked contender, but according to Nurmagomedov, the Irishman needs to go out and get another W.
“I know for a fact now that this guy is trying to delay this rematch,” Hughes told MMA Fighting. “Because I went straight to the f*cking source. I texted him myself last week and I was just like what is going on? Rematch now. He said once again ‘you have to win one more fight, brother.’ So look, straight from the source right there, he’s trying to delay this.”
Hughes has been nothing but respectful to Nurmagomedov and his team, which includes UFC Hall of Famer and former lightweight titleholder Khabib Nurmagomedov, but his patience his quickly wearing thin.
“I was fed up. I’m fed up with all his bullshit,” Hughes said. “I may as well go straight to the source. From what he said last week, he said, ‘you’ve got to win one more fight, brother,’ and at the end of the day, he’s not the f*cking boss. This fight’s happening.”
Paul Hughes still Planning for Nurmagomedov Rematch This Fall
Despite all the drama, Hughes is confident that the PFL will put together the sequel scrap, whether Nurmagomedov wants it or not.
“The fight obviously has to happen,” Hughes said. “Everybody wants this fight to happen. PFL wants this fight to happen. Dubai wants this to happen. The only person that does not want this to happen, very, very clearly right now, is Usman Nurmagomedov.
“If the fight does not happen, you know why. But I don’t believe that is the case. I think it will happen. I think the PFL and the Dubai government have more leverage than one man. So the fight must happen and it will happen in September or October this year.”
Interestingly, the PFL recently announced that its June 20 event in Wichita will feature a fight between Mansour Barnaoui and Archie Colgan. The promotion also revealed that “the winner of this fight becomes the No. 1 contender for the PFL lightweight world title and will be next in line to face current champion Usman Nurmagomedov.”
Needless to say, Hughes was not amused.
“Hey, quit with the rage bait,” Hughes wrote on X in response.
