Ryan Harkness breaks down daily mixed martial arts (MMA) news, providing unique context to stories that only 15 years of obsessing over the sport can provide, having worked for FOX Sports, Yahoo! Sports, UPROXX, MSN, Bleacher Report, HDNet and CagePotato, among others, before joining MMAmania.com in 2017.
To be a Nurmagomedov in combat sports, you have to be the best. You have to do everything big. Even when you break your hand, it better be legendary, and that's what Umar Nurmagomedov did at UFC 311 when fighting Merab Dvalishvili.
Nurmagomedov lost his bantamweight title shot against "The Machine," with the judges scoring it 48-47, 48-47, and 49-46 for Dvalishvili. Early on in the fight he saw a lot of success, but as the bout wore on Umar seemed to tire out ... and Merab turned up the pace. Following the defeat, Nurmagomedov revealed he'd broken his hand early in the fight -- and believes even with that injury he still did enough to win.
We're not surprised to hear the cope, but let's be real: Dvalishvili bullied Nurmagomedov for the last three rounds, and there wasn't anything controversial about the decision. The hand injury? A legit excuse, one that we're sure will play a big part in the fight narrative should Merab and Umar fight again. But something that happens in a lot of fights.
That's not to say we aren't impressed at Umar's toughness after seeing multiple pictures of his swollen fist. And now you can take a look at just how serious the break was based on the hardware Dubai surgeons had to put in Umar's hand to fix things up.
X-rays shared by Nurmagomedov following surgery show a two inch screw running through the entire length of his metacarpal bone below the index finger.
According to Team Khabib manager Rizvan Magomedov, they identified the exact moment the break happened: in the middle of round two, off an Umar punch to Dvalishvili's head. According to Nurmagomedov's manager Ali Abdelaziz, the hope is Umar will return to action in mid- to late-summer.
The loss to Dvalishvili drops Nurmagomedov's otherwise flawless record to 18-1.