Apparently, nothing is stopping a clash between Cory Sandhagen and Umar Nurmagomedov.
Of course, it’s a year since the originally scheduled bout — 364 days, including leap day, to be exact — but UFC and the two notable bantamweight contenders agree that the two need to fight, and they’re set to do so in the main event of the latest UFC on ABC (3 p.m. ET) in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.
“They still wanted me and Umar to fight as the No. 1 contenders, so that’s why they asked for it,” Sandhagen explained in a video call with The Washington Post on Tuesday. “I was like, ‘Hey, I think Umar should win or at least fight up front.’ I think it’s a fair thing to ask for.”
Nurmagomedov’s win over little-known newcomer Bekzat Almakan in March met that standard, and a rescheduled bout that both fighters spoke about this week could determine the next challenger for the 135-pound championship if titleholders Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili win on Sept. 14.
Of course, if all had gone according to plan, the fight between Sandhagen and Nurmagomedov would have been completed last August, but the cousin of UFC Hall of Famer Khabib Nurmagomedov withdrew a few weeks later with a shoulder injury.
Sandhagen, always calm and bearing no ill will at the time, accepted a quick matchup with Rob Font, whose strengths as a boxer were at odds with Nurmagomedov’s more versatile skill set.
But Sandhagen (17-4, 10 finishes), a former interim title challenger and regular in the bantamweight top five, was victorious on the scorecards in the five-round main event in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Clean” refers to Sandhagen’s unanimous decision score of 50-45, and not the fact that his victory was cost him what he called a “really rare” complete tear of his right right triceps just a few minutes into the bout.
Instead of standing up and fighting with power and force – Sandhagen’s typical crowd-pleasing style – the famed kickboxer relied heavily on an element of his game he rarely displays: grappling.
It wasn’t a pretty look to watch what is essentially a one-armed man grappling with a less-vaunted element of his sport, but it got the job done, and Sandhagen “absolutely” believes that had he been healthy, his performance on the mat would have been far more dynamic.
“If I had two arms in that fight, I’m sure the fight would have been stopped,” Sandhagen said. “No offense to Rob Font, because I really like Rob. I think he’s a good guy. But if I had two arms in that fight, I would have won with one arm, won every round and hardly got hit.”
While injuries are a part of sports and, to some extent, the goal in combat sports, the torn triceps was the most serious of Sandhagen’s career.
Sandhagen wasted no time in going into surgery, had an MRI the next day, surgery later that week to repair a torn muscle, and about eight weeks later had arthroscopic surgery to remove a “floating bone” that had caused bursitis and injury a few weeks before the Font fight.
Three months had passed since my first surgery, and my fear of reinjuring my arm had subsided, until around February I finally stopped having to think about it.
“I feel great. My rehab has gone really well. I’ve stayed healthy the whole time,” said the 32-year-old. “I think the key to healing from an injury is not to get fat and lazy while you’re injured.”
To that end, Sandhagen said he has been working frequently on his kicks, his left hand and improving his footwork while he waits for his right arm to recover.
“I did everything I could with one arm missing,” said Sandhagen, who has won three straight fights since losing a decision to Petr Yan for the interim title in October 2021 as a Fight of the Night bonus winner.
Sandhagen’s recent successes include a win over Marlon “Tito” Vera, who lost a title shot to O’Malley in March.
Obviously, the injury put an end to any plans for Sandhagen to fight for the title against someone he’d apparently beaten the previous March, but the Colorado native acknowledged that O’Malley was especially keen to avenge the only loss of his professional career.
The champion’s victory in what Sandhagen called a “huge mismatch” paves the way for the winner of Saturday’s bout against Nurmagomedov (17-0, nine finishes) to become his next opponent, possibly early next year.
Sandhagen is content to wait until then, but admits he has no idea what his next move will be if the result of their championship bout in September leads to a rematch. But he’s not discounting Nurmagomedov, the Russian who has yet to be tested by the top contenders at 135 pounds but who the American finds intriguing.
“His style is what I’m most interested in. It’s been fun to understand how versatile he is,” says Sandhagen, one of the sport’s more analytical figures at the senior level. “It’s very difficult, but a lot of fun to understand. I think it’s really cool that he comes from a really good team and is also this mythical monster that the guys from Dagestan are turning into.”
“I want to see how good I am compared to that. Like I said, a big part of me doing this is to see how good I am, and see how good I am compared to a guy who has a really unique and good striking style and comes out of one of the best grappling camps.”
