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 are making such a huge tragedy out of this, they should just calm down,” Nurmagomedov wrote on Instagram (Russian-to-English translation via Red Corner MMA). “There are things far worse. You don’t have to think for long, just look at what is happening in the world.
“And regarding the claims that I supposedly wanted to hit his opponent, if I had wanted to, I would have 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.
“You angry, petty, and jealous people,” Nurmagomedov wrote. “Your problem is that you have never had, and never will never have, an understanding of family love. If you don’t know what a brother means to his brother, then I’m not the one you should feel sorry for, you should feel sorry for yourselves.”
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 own saying he was doing fine after the main event ended.
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