Song Yadong was just seconds removed from picking up the biggest win of his career after he knocked out Umar Nurmagomedov in the UFC Shanghai main event, and he decided to run around the octagon in celebration. But he ended up in a direct collision with Umar’s brother Usman Nurmagomedov, and for a brief second, it appeared that the PFL lightweight champion may have actually taken a swing at Song as he circled the cage.
For his part, Song didn’t blink during the brief altercation and Usman later released a statement denying that he tried to hit his brother’s opponent. In that moment, Usman was just trying to get to his brother to make sure he was OK after the vicious finish.
Retired UFC welterweight Matt Brown, who now owns his own gym and regularly serves as a corner man to his fighters competing in the octagon, chalks the whole incident up as much ado about nothing.
“It’s one of those situations where the news is a little slow this week, and I wish I could get a good headline clip out of this but realistically I think it was a nothing burger,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I think it will be forgotten. I don’t think Usman meant anything by it. Like he said, like [Daniel] Cormier said, he didn’t hit him — if he wanted to hit him, he would have hit him.
“His brother just got knocked out. The emotions that you go through, even if it’s not your brother, just as a cornerman, you care about your guy and you’re running in there and you’re trying to help him out and support as best you can and make sure he’s OK. A lot of crazy shit is happening.”
Brown knows from his own personal experience how emotional that experience can be, especially for the coaches and corner men stuck watching from the outside looking in.
He just recently went through something similar when one of his fighters made his UFC debut, and the fight ended with a brutal knockout.
“The fact is it’s an absolutely intense, crazy situation,” Brown said. “I dealt with it for the first time the last time I cornered a guy in the UFC. My fighter Josiah Harrell and he got knocked out and they yelled at me to go help him out, because he couldn’t tell who was who and what was what. It’s a f*cking intense situation.
“It’s the first time I ever ran inside the cage when I had a fighter knocked out. I can tell you, what’s going through your head, you’re living off instinct. There’s really not a lot of thought. You only care about one single thing.”
As much as that moment made it appear that Usman Nurmagomedov was potentially taking a swing at Song Yadong, Brown is confident the only thing Usman was thinking about was his brother.
“This isn’t tennis or basketball or something,” Brown said. “You’re getting knocked out, there’s blood, there’s permanent damage that can happen. You’re getting injured. It’s very intense. The emotions are way different.
“Cornering is tough because you can’t control anything. It’s really tough. All you can do is hope for the best and yell out the best advice you can give. It’s up to them. It makes a tough situation. I don’t think [Usman] tried to hit him, obviously he didn’t hit him. His mind was 1000 percent focused on his brother and that’s that.”
If Brown had any advice for Usman Nurmagomedov moving forward, it’s the reality that maybe he shouldn’t corner his brother again due to the extreme emotional turmoil that comes along with that particular pairing.
But whether it’s blood relation or not, Brown knows the entire Nurmagomedov team is like family so it’s almost impossible to avoid those situations. It really just comes down to handling the emotions in those moments and not allowing something bad to happen like what nearly unfolded on Saturday at UFC Shanghai.
“This is the exact reason why I don’t think it’s the best to have someone close to you in the corner,” Brown said. “You just don’t know what’s going to happen. It doesn’t matter how much you were supposed to win. It doesn’t matter how much better you are then [the opponent]. This is MMA. Insane shit happens all the time.”
