Former UFC champion Israel Adesanya and Nassourdine Imavov headlined the UFC Saudi Arabia last Saturday, but he lost after two rounds in the cage.
Adesanya displayed impressive striking skills and takedown defense, but in the end, a heavy right hand leveled him and took him to the ground. Imavov followed with ground and pound, leading to a referee stoppage.
Many were quite disappointed with this turn of events as the loss was Adesanya’s third in a row, but his striking coach, Mike Angove, spoke to Submission Radio, sharing his opinion on what went wrong with the fight.
“The name of the game, particularly in small gloves: You can’t make mistakes,” Angove told Submission Radio. “We made a mistake. Nassourdine, I would say, with his team, recognized when we made that mistake, and they jumped on it – which means they have to have planned. So you’ve got to congratulate them for that. Izzy got poked in the eye. There was a break. Izzy didn’t want to take the break – was just keen on getting on with it. But in doing that, he didn’t reset as you normally would and create some space.
“That means you’re still in the firing zone, and then you want him to keep the pressure on. It’s just one of those things. It just happens. He felt he was doing well in the fight and wanted to keep that pressure on, and Nassourdine caught him switching – beautiful right hand that resonated around the stadium, and he couldn’t recover from that. It was right on the button, and then he followed up with a left hook against the cage, and the referee came and stopped it.”
“No, he just got clipped in the eye,” Angove said. “It does put you off momentarily, but he could see clearly enough when it came to reset. It’s just one of those things: You’ve got to be careful.
“An experienced pro will cram the distance when the referee breaks something. You have to create your own space. You reset or circle back to the center. But in the heat of the moment, you want to put the pressure on, which is what happened. That’s just what happens. That’s the fight. At the end of the day, it’s just a fight, so we just have to deal with it.”
Angove credited Imavov for his stances and said he displayed superior fighting skills, and there was nothing they could do about it.
