"It felt like 20 minutes!" - UFC 294 fighter Muhammad Mokaev recalls the kneebar that nearly ended his dream of breaking a Jon Jones record

Muhammad Mokaev is one of several Muslim fighters scheduled to be featured on tomorrow's UFC 294 card. The 23-year-old flyweight will face veteran 125-pounder Tim Elliot in the final preliminary bout of the evening. It will mark the Dagestani-born fighter's first fight since his March outing against Jafel Filho.

His most recent fight was notable for featuring a scary moment when Mokaev found himself at the mercy of his opponent's kneebar. Despite being in excruciating pain, the streaking flyweight refused to tap out. Instead, he used his elite-level grappling skills to engineer an uncanny escape, before submitting Filho with a neck crank.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Muhammad Mokaev touched on nearly being submitted and how the entire situation felt longer than it actually was:

"Of course you sometimes have to handle pain in your life. It was for 52 seconds but it felt like 20 minutes. Sometimes you have to handle the pain to get some results. Nothing in life is easy and sometimes you have to sacrifice something."

A loss, Mokaev believes, would have surely derailed his dream of becoming the youngest UFC champion in history, a record still held by Jon Jones. However, with the year coming to a close and Tim Elliot being the first top 10 opponent Muhammad Mokaev will face, he must speed up his progress.

Not only must he beat Elliot, Mokaev must hope that it will somehow catapult him into title contention, as he has until March next year before it will no longer be possible for him to break Jon Jones' record.

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Muhammad Mokaev's undefeated streak

Part of the mystique behind fighters who hail from Dagestan is the prevalence of undefeated records among them. While Muhammad Mokaev is an Englishman, he was born in Dagestan and it is there that the foundation of his strong grappling skills was laid. It has enabled him to remain unbeaten in MMA competition.

Mokaev has taken part in 11 bouts thus far, winning 10 and having a no-contest in his penultimate Brave CF fight when an accidental groin shot left his opponent unable to continue. He rebounded from that blemish with a five-fight win streak, four of which took place in the UFC.