Zabit Magomedsharipov Wanted to Submit Brandon Davis at UFC 228 to Prove a Point

Zabit Magomedsharipov continued to impress in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s featherweight division with his win over Brandon Davis at UFC 228.

The 27 year-old from Dagestan secured his fourth win inside the Octagon, maintaining his unblemished record inside the promotion (16-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) when he submitted Davis via a kneebar to stay perfect in the UFC. The submission broke the previous UFC record of only one submission by kneebar for an entire card when earlier on in the night Aljamain Sterling secured one of his own against Cody Stamann.

Magomedsharipov was originally meant to face the explosive Yair Rodriguez on Saturday, but his opponent pulled out last month due to injury and the UFC brought in Davis as a replacement.

Despite the change, Magomedsharipov said his submission had been in the works for a while after studying his opponent’s previous fights.

“I saw (Sterling’s submission),” Magomedsharipov said after his win. “We’ve been working on it. We watched his tape and saw he was giving his back a lot, so we were working on getting a submission from the back.”

Magomedsharipov was given extra incentive to finish the fight as he did after Davis went on record stating that the undefeated Dagestani had weaknesses in his grappling game.

“I wanted to finish the fight, and I was watching my opponent’s interview and he was saying I had holes in my grappling game,” Magomedsharipov said. “So I wanted to prove to him and everyone else, I don’t have holes in my grappling.”