On Monday, Gaethje was in Los Angeles spending some time with UFC color commentator Joe Rogan while getting in a workout with his head coach Trevor Wittman. Rogan posted a short video on his Instagram calling Gaethje a “savage” after witnessing his training session with Wittman.
In response, Nurmagomedov dropped into the comments to offer Gaethje a not so subtle reminder of the war ahead of him in the lightweight title unification bout at UFC 254.
“Justin is a very nice guy and good opponent for me, but when octagon close he have to be ready not only boxing match, I’m not Dustin [Poirier] or Tony [Ferguson],” Nurmagomedov wrote on Instagram. “I will take him to the deepest ocean and drown him.”
View this post on Instagram
Awesome morning at the studio where I had the privilege of seeing the savage @justin_gaethje and the master Trevor Whitman of @onxlabs put in work! Thank you also to my brother @yacoubianmuaythai for the awesome training session!
A post shared by Joe Rogan (@joerogan) on Aug 3, 2020 at 11:55am PDT
In fact, the undefeated Russian has only lost one round during his entire UFC career. That came in the third round of his fight against Conor McGregor … and then Nurmagomedov finished the fight in the fourth round with a submission.
Rarely does Nurmagomedov try to disguise his game plan to take his opponents to the ground and maul them but it will be an interesting test with Gaethje, who’s a former Division I NCAA All-American wrestler from his time at the University of Northern Colorado.
Currently, Nurmagomedov is training close to home in Dagestan, but it’s expected that he will travel back to the United States to work with his coaches and teammates at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif., before facing Gaethje in October.
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