Las Vegas — In his promotional debut at UFC Vegas 119 on Saturday, featherweight Murtazali Magomedov hit a twister submission on Melsik Baghdasaryan, marking one of the most memorable UFC debuts in ages.
That’s what you call debuting in style. Only three other fighters (The Korean Zombie, Bryce Mitchell, and Da’Mon Blackshear) have ever successfully used the submission in UFC history. Coincidentally, two of them (Zombie and Mitchell) happened to be featherweights; Zombie pulled it off in his UFC (but not Zuffa) debut after competing for the WEC.
As it turns out, Magomedov (11-0) learned the submission recently, from former UFC flyweight Askar Askarov.
“This exact twister was shown to me by a brother of mine, Askar Askarov. And I started training it and training it and training it, and eventually it started working in practice,” Magomedov told media outlets including Cageside Press at the Meta Apex on Saturday following his win. “In the fight itself, once I took his back, it was something that is kind of like, without even thinking. It was something [like] on auto-pilot. I saw it, and I knew I was going to take it.”
It was about a month ago that Askarov showed him the move, so it didn’t take time for Magomedov to add the submission to his arsenal. Moving forward, meanwhile, he wants to stay busy.
Forgoing in translator, the fighter from Kyrgyzstan stated that “I want to be active. I want to fight maybe every three, four months maybe. Now featherweight division, very interesting division, but now we don’t have big names and I think I can be like a new highlight. I have 11 wins, 11 finishes. I just started to show my skills, my techniques. I think in future I will show more.”
Asked who he’d like to share the octagon with next, Magomedov explained that “I don’t have names, but it doesn’t matter. Anybody, any time, anywhere.” As for a message to his division, it’s simple: “I am here. Be careful, be ready.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 119 post-fight press conference with Murtazali Magomedov above.