Demetrious Johnson: Dagestani fighters mainly lose for one reason

Demetrious Johnson sees just one weakness in fighters from Dagestan.

Team Khabib Nurmagomedov has produced remarkable results, from UFC welterweight champion Islam Makhachev's 28-1 record to Umar Nurmagomedov's 19-1 record to PFL lightweight champion Usman Nurmagomedov's 20-0 mark.

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Nurmagomedov (19-1 MMA, 7-1 UFC) rebounded from his first-career loss to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 311 by snapping Mario Bautista's winning streak at UFC 321. He will look to earn another title shot when he takes on Deiveson Figueiredo (25-5-1 MMA, 14-5-1 UFC) in Saturday's UFC 324 (Paramount+) featured prelim at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

"So the fight between Umar and Figgy is going to come down to the grappling," Johnson said on the JAXXON PODCAST. "Umar is going to take him down. It's going to be a grappling exchange. Figgy is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. His last fight he got beat by Cory Sandhagen, he blew his knee out from that 50-50 position.

"But If I have to pick one, I am going to pick Umar Nurmagomedov. Those guys train so hard. The only reason I feel like those guys do lose is obviously someone is better than them, but they gas out because they're overtrained. They train all the f*cking time."

In his title loss to Dvalishvili, Nurmagomedov won the first two rounds on two of the judges' scorecards before "The Machine" rallied to get the unanimous decision win.

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Demetrious Johnson: Dagestani fighters mainly lose for one reason