We are less than two hours away from UFC Fight Night St. Petersburg, which features Alistair Overeem and Aleksei Oleinik in the main event.
One person who isn’t happy with the way the UFC has promoted today’s event is UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.
“It seems to me that after the event in Moscow there were all the same people, all the same media that were,” Nurmagomedov said at a recent fan Q&A event (via Drake Riggs of BJPenn.com). “UFC fans are watching, but I know that most people don’t even know that they are doing UFC in Russia. 20 April, Magomed Mustafaev will fight with a new guy (Rafael Fiziev), no one even knows about this fight. Or [Alexei] Oleinik vs. [Alistair] Overeem. Why not show or promote it?”
The card isn’t the most star stacked of Fight Night cards, with only six ranked fighters competing on the twelve fight card.
Nurmagomedov would like the promotion give more attention to the home country fighters.
“On the first event [Mairbek] Taisumov, [Rustam] Khabilov, Omari Ahkmedov fought. Taisumov has five victories in a row. Khabilov has several wins. But they didn’t even participate in any media events or promotion. [Nikita] Krylov participated, who returned after being fired. Petr Yan participated who was conducting the second fight in the UFC. I think the UFC should have a different policy. UFC needs to pay attention to our fighters,” says Nurmagomedov.
UFC Fight Night St. Petersburg takes place today from the Gazprom Arena in St. Petersburg, Russia with Alistair Overeem and Aleksei Oleinik headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which streams live on ESPN+.
