Usman Nurmagomedov Dominates Mike Hamel To UD Victory At Bellator 255

Usman Nurmagomedov Dominates Mike Hamel To UD Victory At Bellator 255

Bellator MMA returns for their first event in four months tonight, April 2, 2021, as Bellator 255 goes underway in Uncasville, Connecticut.

Headlining the event is a much anticipated featherweight title clash between the greatest fighter in Bellator history, Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire, who faces their No. 2 ranked featherweight contender Emmanuel Sanchez for the second time.

Their first bout showed Freire defeat Sanchez via unanimous decision (48-46, 48-47, 48-47), as he made his second consecutive, and fourth overall title defense that night back in November of 2018.

‘Pitbull’ has since defended his title twice more, and Sanchez has since gone 3-0 with three dominant performances.

The second bout on the main card tonight showcased a lightweight affair between Usman Nurmagomedov and Mike Hamel. Nurmagomedov came in with a record of 11-0, while Hamel has gone 7-4 through that same amount of eleven fights.

This is Nurmagomedov’s promotional debut, while Hamel just made his Bellator debut in his last bout, where he was defeated by Adam Borics, the last man to defeat Aaron Pico, via split decision. It was a very tough fight he looked much better than expected in.

We’ve been hearing the Nurmagomedov name a good amount lately, continue reading to see how he did tonight:

Official Result: Usman Nurmagomedov def. Mike Hamel via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)

Round 1

Hamel takes the center once the bout begins, and is doing a good job landing punches to Nurmagomedov’s body.

Nurmagomedov on the other hand did a great job finding his range with his wide variety of kicks in this round, and also landed a number of stinging jabs.

Round 2

Nurmagomedov opens up round two with a series of head kicks, with Hamel still doing his best to push forward and land his strikes.

Round two was quite reminiscent of round one, with Nurmagomedov landing a lot of kicks to Hamel’s body, though Hamel hasn’t slowed any, which is kind of surprising.

Round 3

Round three was more of the same, as Hamel tried pressing forward with offense, but was picked apart merely the entire time. Nurmagomedov kept his body kicks and jabs going, and started landing a slick cross behind the jab as the round went on.

Hamel tried for a few takedowns, and came close to securing one, but was unable to do anything effective offensively. We learned how tough Hamel is tonight, and we learned Usman Nurmagomedov is a name to watch, as we believed him to be.

author avatar
Brady Ordway
I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!