UFC 253 - Hakeem Dawodu opens the main card with a win over Zubaira Tukhugov

Tonight's UFC 253 main card started-off with an exciting featherweight fight between Hakeem Dawodu and Zubaira Tukhugov. For quite a long period of time, the UFC failed to book Dawodu in a fight, however, upon his return to the Octagon for the first time in over a year, the Canadian born fighter secured an impressive win over Tukhugov.

Accompanied by his teammate and reigning UFC Lightweight Champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov to the Octagon, Zubaira Tukhugov headed into the fight with a win TKO win over Kevin Aguilar at UFC Fight Night 168. The Russian was aiming for yet another win on the night but this one didn't go his way.

Scorecards? 📝🇳🇬🇨🇦 @MeanHakeemKo gets the SD from Fight Island. [ #UFC253 | #InAbuDhabi | @VisitAbuDhabi ] pic.twitter.com/89P5ce7wGd

— UFC (@ufc) September 27, 2020

Hakeem Dawodu puts away Zubaira Tukhugov

While Hakeem Dawodu wasn't impressed with Zubaira Tukhugov's performance on the night and claimed that the latter kept "running", Dawodu certainly made sure that he got the job done for himself, as he edged out the Russian via split decision.

One of the biggest highlights of the fight for Hakeem Dawodu was his takedown defense, which was on point tonight. 'Mean', especially in the third round, prevented Tukhugov from taking the fight to the mat on a few occasions, which might've been the crucial factor of this featherweight bout. After three rounds of back-and-forth action, the fight was taken to the judges' scorecard with the scorecards reading 30-27 and 29-28 for Dawodu and the third judge scoring the fight 29-28 in favor of Tukhugov.

#UFC253 main card starts off with a win Hakeem Dawodu who beats Zubaira Tukhugov pic.twitter.com/rEUyuo4o5P

— Sportskeeda MMA (@sportskeedaMMA) September 27, 2020

Post-fight, Hakeem Dawodu was visibly disappointed and claimed that Tukhugov was running, as everybody could clearly see. For his next Octagon outing, Dawodu asked the UFC to give him someone who is willing to throw it down.

“I thought it was going to be a good fight but as everybody can see, he was running. I promise the next fight, give me somebody that ain’t gonna run.”- said, Hakeem Dawodu.

In his Octagon interview, Dawodu also apologized for the cussing during the fight and is now aiming for a higher-ranked opponent.