Khabib Nurmagomedov was only 1-0 in the UFC when he was matched against Gleison Tibau, one of the true veterans of the lightweight division, at UFC 148 in 2012.
It ended up being the closest fight of Nurmagomedov’s Octagon career, a fight which many people scored against him.
Tibau defended every single one of Nurmagomedov’s 13 takedown attempts and even took Nurmagomedov down himself, a rare occurrence in Nurmagomedov’s career. In the end, judges Glenn Trowbridge, Mark Smith and Jeff Collins all scored it 30-27 for the Dagestani, who cried a lot after Bruce Buffer read the result.