Islam Makhachev went to the UFC’s inaugural event in Qatar to corner his two teammates. The newly crowned two-division champ was in the corner of UFC debutant Saygid Izagakhmaev and Tagir Ulanbekov, against their opponents Nicolas Dalby and Kyoji Horiguchi, respectively. And because of the Dagestani icon’s cageside presence, both fighters had a huge hype train behind them to win. However, even with Makhachev’s presence, the night didn’t turn out as they expected.

In the prelims, the debutant Izagakhmaev had a really competitive three-round bout against UFC veteran Nicolas Dalby. After 15 minutes of action, the fight went to the judges, who handed the split-decision victory to ‘The Danish Dynamite’. He probably got the nod because he edged Izagakhmaev out on total strikes and control time. But UFC Qatar couldn’t be more unforgiving for Islam Makhachev’s corner work, as on the main card, Kyoji Horiguchi also made a solid UFC comeback and secured a rear-naked choke submission in the third round against an uninspired Ulanbekov.

This is a developing story…