Shara Magomedov continued his winning ways on Saturday as he sliced and diced his way through Michal Oleksiejczuk to win a unanimous decision in the UFC Abu Dhabi co-main event.
Despite taking the fight on short notice, Magomedov was more than ready for all three rounds as he threw his signature kicks mixed in with some devastating elbows that constantly kept Oleksiejczuk off balance. By the end of the third round, Oleksiejczuk was slumped down on the canvas with a pair of cuts around his eyes after absorbing a ton of punishment after spending 15 minutes in the cage with Magomedov.
The final scores read 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 as Magomedov picked up another big win in the octagon. Following his victory, Magomedov offered up a curious callout.
“This is very important for me to fight here because it’s like a home crowd for me,” Magomedov said about fighting in Abu Dhabi. “This is just the start for me. I’m happy to win today.
“My next fight I want to call out Nick Diaz. You’re a striker, I’m a striker. Let’s go Abu Dhabi, October.”
Confidence in his power allowed Oleksiejczuk to actually crack Magomedov with some stinging shots at the start of the fight as he showed no fear in the exchanges with the dangerous Russian. In return, Magomedov displayed his devastating array of kicks as well as an elbow that sliced Oleksiejczuk open with a cut on his left eye.
While Magomedov kept ending up on his backfoot, he was still launching a variety of strikes at Oleksiejczuk, who was stuck reacting and just working to close the distance to employ his best punches. Concerns about conditioning have continued to plague Magomedov but fighting at a methodical pace allowed him to just pick and choose his shots against Oleksiejczuk.
Magomedov’s speed was also giving Oleksiejczuk all sorts of problems as he just didn’t see so many of the strikes coming at him from various angles. A side kick from Magomedov led to some knees up the middle as he really started pouring on the punishment to Oleksiejczuk.
Late in the fight, Magomedov uncorked a hellacious head kick that nailed Oleksiejczuk but somehow the Polish middleweight absorbed the strike and kept coming. Even a takedown from Oleksiejczuk didn’t help him much with Magomedov slicing him open again with elbows from the bottom as the action came to a close.
Now 14-0 in his career with three straight wins in the UFC, Magomedov continues to look like a future contender as he slowly but surely shows improvement with every fight.
