Rafael dos Anjos believes Khabib Nurmagomedov and Daniel Cormier have overhyped Islam Makhachev
Rafael dos Anjos believes Khabib Nurmagomedov, Daniel Cormier, and the AKA team have overhyped Islam Makhachev too much.
dos Anjos and Makhachev have been linked to a fight for quite some time as they were supposed to fight last October and November but the fight never came to fruition. Now, at UFC 267 on October 30, dos Anjos and Makhachev will finally meet and in the lead-up to the scrap, Rafael dos Anjos believes Makhachev is overhyped as he is ranked fifth but hasn’t beaten anyone in the top-10.
“We’ve been talking nonsense on the internet, but finally let’s settle the score. It will be a good fight to put me in the mix, especially now that he’s got the hype all over him. I’ll show you that I’m alive, that I’m still in the game,” dos Anjos said to AG Fight. “I have complete confidence that I will beat Makhachev. When you have guys like Khabib (Nurmagomedov) in the corner, Cormier talking all the time, it creates even more hype. I even give (Beneil) Dariush as an example. He beat the same guys as Makhachev, even better, he was more convincing, but nobody talks about him. He beat Thiago (Moises) and went to fifth in the ranking.”
Although dos Anjos believes Makhachev is overhyped, the two will finally meet next month. Although they are fighting, RDA says he wanted to be a Fight Night main event but Makhachev only wanted to do three rounds against him.
“I asked for a five-round fight, but he didn’t want to, he wants to fight three rounds. It also tells me a little bit of the strategy he is coming, possibly, to hold the fight, to make a more truncated game. I’ll be fine for three rounds, but I wanted to fight five. Doesn’t he think he will be champion? You have to be prepared to fight five rounds. It didn’t happen, but we’re going with everything,” dos Anjos concluded.
