Usman Nurmagomedov is never going to apologize for caring about his brother’s well-being, but that doesn’t mean he was trying to attack his opponent at UFC Shanghai.
Song Yadong scored the biggest win of his career on Saturday when he blasted Umar Nurmagomedov with a perfectly timed uppercut that sent the Russian crashing to the canvas to end the fight. Immediately after the fight was stopped, Usman jumped into the cage to check on his brother and Song ended up colliding with him as he ran around
the cage to celebrate his victory.
The brief physical altercation led many to speculate that Usman actually tried hitting Song with an elbow strike after running into each other, but the reigning PFL lightweight champion was quick to deny that allegation while addressing the incident on social media.
“People make such a big tragedy out of this, they would [be] better [to] calm down,” Nurmagomedov wrote on Instagram (via translation). “There are things that are much worse, you don’t have to think too long, just look at what is happening in the world.
“And at the expense of the fact that I allegedly wanted to hit his opponent. If I wanted to, I would’ve hit him.”
For his part, Song never broke stride during his celebration and he eventually went over to Nurmagomedov’s corner and spoke to his head coach Khabib to pay his respects after the fight.
“Evil little and jealous people,” Nurmagomedov wrote. “Your problem is that you have never had and will never have the understanding and love of the family. If you don’t know what a brother means to a brother, then you should feel sorry not for me, but for you.”
It was obviously a tough moment for Usman after watching his brother suffer such a brutal knockout loss — only the second defeat of his career —but Umar eventually got back to his feet and released a statement of his ownsaying he was doing fine after the main event ended.
