Muhammad Mokaev doesn’t faucet. He hasn’t tapped in his 8-0 professional profession, nor his 22-0 newbie profession. He didn’t even faucet on Saturday night time at UFC 286 when Jafel Filho had him caught in a completely prolonged kneebar. As an alternative, he one way or the other managed to drag his leg out of the submission and end the combat moments later, locking in a rear bare choke on Filho with 28 seconds left on the clock.
It was an thrilling end to a combat that proved Mokaev is as robust as they arrive, nevertheless it’s probably include a steep price ticket. The 22-year-old flyweight is racing the clock to change into the UFC’s youngest champion, and he might have simply value himself a 12 months on the sidelines with a severe knee damage.
On Sunday night time, Mokaev shared some images of the knee. It’s wanting fairly tousled.
“After I received’t faucet, what he would do , it was very attention-grabbing for me…” Mokaev wrote on Twitter. “The ache was loopy, he had steel groin guard too. Respect to Jafel Filho!”
“Seen some tweets saying ‘You didn’t faucet however you would possibly threat to finish your profession!’” he added in one other submit. “I relatively finish my profession with out being quitter. I’m in loopy ache proper now but when I might faucet it might harm my coronary heart much more.”
“I’ll do MRI tomorrow morning, I hope it’s all good however I can’t stroll in the mean time however I’m nonetheless very proud of my efficiency.”
Now we all know what Mokaev’s perspective is towards tapping, which simply makes a second within the first spherical the place he appeared to faucet whereas on high of Filho even stranger. Instantly after the combat, Muhammad admitted his shoulder was so injured coming into the bout that he couldn’t even placed on a shirt. Some questioned whether or not Filho squeezing his knees collectively in guard led to Mokaev tapping because of the damage.
Mokaev denied he tapped through the UFC 286 post-fight press convention.
“No, no, no,” he mentioned. “I did make a noise, so he squeezed extra, obtained tight, however I used to be over his knees. In case you take a look at the complete guard, it was fairly tight, nevertheless it wasn’t, I may nonetheless breathe. No, positively no.”
Does refusing to faucet to that locked in kneebar give Mokaev sufficient credibility to override what the video appears to point out us? Tell us what you suppose within the feedback, Maniacs.
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