Rafael Fiziev vs. Mauricio Ruffy UFC 325 breakdown from a training partner of the former

Rafael Fiziev prepares to do battle at UFC 325, and a training partner of Fiziev’s has weighed in on that high-stakes lightweight contest on Saturday. Fiziev has historically trained at Tiger Muay Thai with the likes of two-time UFC champ Petr Yan, but there is also a Rizin champ out of the TMT fold. Ilkhom Nozimov captured the RFF lightweight title with a thirteen-second KO of Roberto ‘Satoshi’ de Souza at Rizin’s annual New Year’s Eve card to close out 2025.

When offering up his thoughts on that Mauricio Ruffy fight coming up at UFC 325, that his TMT compatriot Fiziev will be taking part in on January 31st, Nozimov said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],

“Oh, you know, Rafa is a very tough guy. Every time I train to him, my sensors always have to be on because he is a guy who can put you down on your a** with every shot at any time. This is a guy who I learned a lot from and [am] still learning [from]. When I heard the news about that he’s going to fight Ruffy, I realized, wow, I’m probably going to be a main sparring partner for him in that camp.”

“Actually only because of my injury, we didn’t train much. When I injured myself when I was training with him and then I didn’t help much him in that camp. But I’m very excited about this fight and I have no doubt that it’s going to be beautiful and a great fight. For sure it’s going to be 50k for both guys and I really hope Rafa is going to win. I’m cheering for him.”

Rafael Fiziev fears for former two-time opponent Justin Gaethje in Ilia Topuria UFC title unification clash

Rafael Fiziev has fallen short on two occasions to Justin Gaethje, but he still worries about the interim lightweight UFC champ’s chances in an eventual bout with divisional kingpin Ilia Topuria. Fiziev indicated he was happy about Gaethje’s win over Pimblett during Fiziev’s UFC 325 fight week media day. But Rafael Fiziev also seemed taken aback by how Gaethje was very slow over the course of the fight and questioned the fitness level that the ex-BMF champ showed up to the fight with.

Fiziev went as far as to say he does not want to see the Gaethje-Topuria bout because of how the interim 155-pound champ looked en route to defeating ‘The Baddy’ on January 24th.