CHICAGO – You wouldn’t know by watching, but the Bellator 288 co-main event was a challenge for Usman Nurmagomedov.
It certainly didn’t look that way as Nurmagomedov dominated Patricky Freire and cruised to a 50-45, 50-44, 50-44 unanimous decision win to claim the lightweight championship Friday at Wintrust Arena. For Nurmagomedov, the fight was one-way traffic for 25 minutes.
And therein lied the real (and perhaps only) challenge: It was the first time that the undefeated Nurmagomedov (16-0 MMA, 5-0 BMMA) went 25 minutes in the cage.
