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Tagir Ulanbekov Believes He Can Beat Alexandre Pantoja With 'Fighting Spirit'



Tagir Ulanbekov claims his fighting spirit sets him apart from everyone Alexandre Pantoja has ever faced.

Ulanbekov handed Clayton Carpenter his first pro loss via unanimous decision victory in the card opener at UFC 311 on Saturday. Likely to enter the Top 10 of the UFC rankings with his win over Carpenter, Ulanbekov called for a title shot against Pantoja in his post-fight interview. Pantoja has walked through almost the entire flyweight division during his championship reign. Ulanbekov belongs to a long line of special athletes trained in the mountains of Dagestan by Khabib Nurmagomedov’s father, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov. Ulanbekov believes it is the tutelage of Abdulmanap that has gifted them with a spirit that sets them apart from others. And according to the 33-year-old, it is this spirit that will give him the edge over Pantoja.

“I have nothing. All I have is a heart of a champion. And I’m gonna win it with my fighting spirit,” Ulanbekov said at his post-fight press conference. “He might have fought guys like me, he might have seen everything. I might not be better in some departments than he is. But what I have that he doesn’t have is a fighting spirit. The kind of fighting spirit that you can’t learn. This is the kind of training that our legendary coach, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, has given us. He made us harder in places – like people wouldn’t even stop there for a night and we had to work and train in those conditions. So the kind of spirit that we have inside is not beaten by anybody. So I’m gonna come out there and just on my fighting spirit, I can win the championship.”

Ulanbekov is 5-1 in the UFC and was coming off back-to-back submission wins before decisioning Carpenter. Meanwhile, Pantoja is riding a seven-fight winning streak that includes four title wins.
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