SAN JOSE, Calif. – Unfortunately, Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov’s preparation for his Bellator return didn’t happen under positive circumstances.
The Turkmenistan-born fighter and Ukraine resident had a stressful and emotional build-up to his light heavyweight bout against former champion Rafael Carvalho at Friday’s Bellator 277.
The ongoing Russian war in Ukraine made it difficult for Yagshimuradov (19-7-1 MMA, 1-2 BMMA) to concentrate on his fight, but in the end, the 32-year-old was able to secure a win by defeating Carvalho in a second-round TKO.
“I’m very happy that I won,” Yagshimuradov told reporters, including MMA Junkie, backstage at SAP Center. “I’m happy to be back on a winning streak. The last two fights didn’t go too well for me, but again, I had a lot of emotions going into this fight.
“I live in Ukraine. I’m not a citizen of Ukraine, but I have a lot of ties to it. We all know what’s going on. I can’t really speak about it publicly, but there’s a lot of emotions going to this fight. I had to tune out all the emotions and just strictly focus on this fight. My family is there, and I want to thank everyone who helped my family get out to Turkey. They’re watching home with him, and I’m very thankful.”
Yagshimuradov snapped a two-fight losing streak and got his first win under the Bellator banner with the stoppage of Carvalho. The light heavyweight fighter wants to avenge those pair of defeats and hopes Bellator gives him more activity moving forward.
“I want to return soon, but first of all, thank you to Bellator for making this fight happen and finding an opponent,” Yagshimuradov said. “Again, I had a lot of opponent switches. Going forward there’s a lot of good names in the light heavyweight division – (Anthony) Johnson, Yoel Romero, that’s definitely one of the big names.
“First of all, I want to get for my first fight in Bellator. I want to come back to my rematch against Karl Albrektsson. But moving forward, there’s a lot of, again, loud names that I want to get into. And then if I can get fights more than once a year – I don’t know what the reason is for that – hopefully Bellator can give me more fights moving forward.”
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