The announcement of a fight between Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson and the dominant UFC welterweight, Shavkat Rakhmonov, enthralled several UFC fans. The fight has already started gaining some major hype among UFC fans. Recently, ‘Wonderboy’ also put up a few of his thoughts about this UFC 296 fight on his ‘The MMA Hour’ appearance.

Most UFC fans know that the famed Kazakhstan native, Rakhmonov, holds an undefeated record in the UFC. He hasn’t tasted defeat in the 17 fights of his pro-MMA career either. Apart from a few other touted names like Khamzat Chimaev, Ian Machado Garry, and Colby Covington, several UFC fans also view Rakhmonov as the strongest UFC Welterweight title contender. Hence, it won’t be wrong to predict that the fight is not going to be an easy one for Thompson. However, ‘Wonderboy’, who is aiming for a title shot soon, revealed how fighting Rakhmonov can take him one step closer to his goal.

Stephen Thompson is satisfied despite not getting his preferred rival

‘Wonderboy’ talked about various aspects of his upcoming fight with the noted host of ‘The MMA Hour’ podcast, Ariel Helwani. At a point in their interaction, Wonderboy revealed he wasn’t expecting Rakhmonov as his next rival. The 40-year-old said, “I wanted [Kamaru] Usman, because Usman called me out, but the UFC already had something set up for him”.

Apparently, Thompson knew about the UFC having different plans for ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’. But he gave out an equally sporting response regarding his next scheduled rival, Rakhmonov. As already said, several UFC fans believe Rakhmonov to be one of the most dominant welterweights in the UFC.

Hence, Thompson saw a perfect opportunity to claim himself as a title-shot contender if he managed to defeat ‘Nomad’. He said, “I wanted somebody who was ranked above me. Now, [Shavkat Rakhmonov is] ranked above me. This is the guy. I think could possibly be the welterweight champ at some point[if I beat him]. He’s that good.”

His final words about this issue were, “What better guy to go out there and show the world and the UFC that I deserve a title shot?“. From Thompson’s words, it’s quite apparent that he also views Rakhmonov as a major challenge. And possibly a future UFC Welterweight champ as well. But a lot of UFC fighters have done the unthinkable when it comes to claiming the title. A large chunk of ‘Wonderboy’ fans will hope for something similar at UFC 296.

Colby Covington winning the UFC Welterweight Gold won’t be good news for Stephen Thompson

Lately, the noted UFC legend, Chael Sonnen, revealed how the next UFC Welterweight title fight contender, Colby ‘Chaos’ Covington, doesn’t want to fight the regular UFC Welterweights for a title defense. However, the entire situation will materialize only if he claims the UFC Welterweight gold from Leon Edwards at UFC 296. ‘Covington’ has also revealed that he would like to fight the noted UFC Lightweight champ, Islam Makhachev, for his first title defense.

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So now Wonderboy would like Edwards to defend the title successfully against Covington at UFC 296. Still, a win against Rakhmonov will be the biggest factor in deciding if ‘Wonderboy’ will move closer to a UFC Welterweight title shot or not. What are your thoughts on this entire issue?

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