Esteemed coach Mark Henry believes that his fighter, Zabit Magomedsharipov (1-0 UFC) has an air of Frankie Edgar about him
Henry has compared the UFC newbie to former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar and clearly sees big things ahead for the 26-year-old.
While Conor McGregor’s SBG Ireland teammate Artem Lobov was initially the target for his next fight, Henry believes “The Russian Hammer” did himself no favors with his loss to Andre Fili in Poland recently (via MMAFighting):
“After the last loss I don’t think that’s the route to go anymore,” he explained. The thing was, Artem had said something about Khabib and all of these guys are really close, you know?
“It was very out of Zabit’s nature to say the things he was saying about Artem, he’s such a good kid. When I heard him talk about Artem my eyes kind of popped open.
“We had talked about Artem a lot because of his style too. I think it’s a great fight for Zabit. He’s got a nasty side to him. When he gets hit that’s usually when you see it. That’s why Artem was on our minds, but right now all we’re thinking about is Sheymon.”
Henry also believes that Magomedsharipov is similar in style to Edgar:
“I see a lot of things in Zabit that I see in Frankie,” Henry said.
“Of course, the skillset is there, but it’s other things like toughness and heart that you can’t train that he just has naturally. Frankie was a champion and I see the exact same championship qualities in Zabit.
“I can remember I saw Sean (Shelby) and he was feeling out what kind of opponents we were thinking about. I told him Zabit and Frankie are good friends and I explained to him that when he is matching Zabit he should close he eyes and pretend that he’s matching Frankie, because he is ready for those kind of fights.
“I think he destroys Conor McGregor. I think he could beat Max too, but he would look phenomenal against McGregor. He has that range too, so I think he could look good against Aldo as well.”
