{"id":46219,"date":"2025-10-08T16:39:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T20:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/nurmagomedov-conquers-pfl-title-defeats-hughes-in-decisive-rematch\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T16:39:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T20:39:32","slug":"nurmagomedov-conquers-pfl-title-defeats-hughes-in-decisive-rematch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/mma\/nurmagomedov-conquers-pfl-title-defeats-hughes-in-decisive-rematch\/","title":{"rendered":"Nurmagomedov Conquers PFL Title: Defeats Hughes in Decisive Rematch"},"content":{"rendered":"Usman Nurmagomedov, demonstrated his dominance once again by defeating Paul Hughes in the PFL Champions series in Dubai, securing the lightweight championship.\n\nNurmagomedov (20-0) defeated Hughes (14-3) by unanimous decision in a fight that served as a rematch of a previous encounter in January, where Nurmagomedov also emerged victorious by majority decision. Friday&#8217;s fight, although with similarities, showed a more forceful Nurmagomedov, with judges&#8217; scorecards of 50-45, 49-46 and 48-47.\n\nAfter the victory, Nurmagomedov, cousin of the legendary Khabib Nurmagomedov, celebrated immediately, while Hughes accepted his defeat before the official scores were announced.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Do you mean this fight was close too? I feel like I won every round, but it was a very tough fight against a very tough opponent.<\/p><cite>Usman Nurmagomedov<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nNurmagomedov, former champion in Bellator MMA, has maintained an almost impeccable record during his eight-year professional career. Hughes, from Northern Ireland, became his biggest challenge, despite the two defeats.\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1003%2Fr1555145_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><figcaption>Usman Nurmagomedov logr\u00f3 una victoria m\u00e1s decisiva sobre Paul Hughes en su revancha el viernes, con puntuaciones de los jueces de 50-45, 49-46 y 48-47.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\nHughes&#8217; strategy, focused on wrestling defense and his physical endurance, forced Nurmagomedov to deliver arguably the best performance of his career. Although Nurmagomedov managed to dominate Hughes&#8217; back on several occasions, he couldn&#8217;t secure a finish and struggled to maintain position. Hughes had his moments, including a powerful kick that affected Nurmagomedov, but the latter responded with effective striking that closed Hughes&#8217; right eye in the fifth round.\n\nThe referee Keith Peterson intervened several times due to low kicks and accidental headbutts, a pattern that was repeated from the first fight, where Hughes suffered a cut from an accidental headbutt in the fourth round. However, neither of the fighters was penalized for these accidental blows, and they did not seem to influence the outcome.\n\nNurmagomedov&#8217;s reign has been somewhat confusing due to the acquisition of Bellator MMA by the PFL at the end of 2023, without immediately dissolving the belt system of the now-defunct promotion. Officially, Nurmagomedov won the new vacant PFL title on Friday. The PFL essentially restarted its championships earlier this year and has several vacant title fights scheduled for 2025.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Usman Nurmagomedov, demonstrated his dominance once again by defeating Paul Hughes in the PFL Champions series in Dubai, securing the lightweight championship. Nurmagomedov (20-0) defeated Hughes (14-3) by unanimous decision in a fight that served as a rematch of a previous encounter in January, where Nurmagomedov also emerged victorious by majority decision. Friday&#8217;s fight, although [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[478,7263,479,7264],"class_list":{"0":"post-46219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-mma","7":"tag-mma","8":"tag-paul-hughes","9":"tag-pfl","10":"tag-usman-nurmagomedov"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}