Magomed Umalatov, one of the most touted welterweights in the Professional Fighters League yet to win a title, has changed that in his third season in the PFL.
Umalatov (14-0) was 9-0 (all losses) when he began his PFL journey in 2021. Despite consecutive wins over Kyron Bowen and Leandro Silva, Umalatov did not appear in the playoffs that year.
‘Prince’ secured a KO victory over Jara Al Shirawi in July 2022, qualifying for the final playoffs of the PFL 2022 season. However, visa issues forced Umalatov to cancel his scheduled fight against Rory MacDonald. Umalatov had back-to-back wins over Delano Taylor and Nayib Lopez in the PFL’s 2023 regular season, but withdrew from his match against Magomed Magomedkerimov for undisclosed reasons.
Umalatov is currently scheduled to open the PFL 2024 season against former Bellator MMA champion Andrei Koreshkov (27-4) at PFL 3 on April 19 (9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN and ESPN+ Please watch). Umalatov claims that he has trained smarter for this season as opposed to overtraining in previous seasons.
“Yes, this is my third year,” the 32-year-old said during media day. “Every year I feel like I have had a good experience. My mistakes [the]
The last few years. She was always overtraining.This season I became wiser [during] Training camp. “
Although Koreshkov has a wealth of high-level experience, Umalatov believes he is superior to the “Spartan” in terms of overall skill.
“I think I’m a more complete fighter. [have] all.he just [a] A good striker, that’s all. So I’m confident that I can beat him. ”
After being forced out of PFL 2022 due to visa issues, Umalatov relocated to Florida and is training with American Top Team. The ATT fighters had a huge success last weekend, going 8-0 on the PFL 2 and UFC 300 cards combined. Umalatov wants to bring another belt to ATT, which already has champions such as Jonny Evren and Aleksandr Pantoja.
“Certainly, I’ve been training a lot, so I’m very happy to bring another belt.” [with] Spent 3 years with American Top Team. And the manager always told me to bring another belt. ”
