Father: UFC refused Khabib’s offer to fight McGregor at 170
Jonathan Shrager today sat down with Khabib Nurmagomedov’s father to delve into the details of his son’s social media posts regarding potentially fighting McGregor at UFC 196.
During the recent Conor McGregor late replacement saga, one man’s name in particular was not mentioned by the UFC or The Notorious. A fighter who has felt oft-overlooked by those who’ve reigned atop the UFC Lightweight division during his own undefeated, yet injury-blighted ascendancy through the ranks.
On the 23rd February Khabib tweeted with characteristically dry humour; UFC does not want me to fight Conor because they said the time I fought was 2 thousand years ago and I fought Bears!!!
I stumbled across Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, father and coach of Khabib, who is in London this weekend to corner his fighter Rustam Khabilov. I sat down with him briefly to delve into the details of the his son’s social media post. Here’s what Nurmagomedov Senior had to say on the matter:
When Khabib heard that Rafael Dos Anjos was injured, he asked his manager to call the UFC about him fighting McGregor. The only one question was weight. There was no time to cut to 155 lbs. But McGregor always said that he will fight everybody. He said he wants to fight Robbie Lawler. If there is no question about weight, Khabib said he was ready. The UFC started to talk about Jose Aldo, Frankie Edgar, but not Khabib. Their answer was that they could not give him the fight at 170 lbs. But we know what happened afterwards; they gave the fight at 170 to Nate Diaz. Why Nate Diaz, but not Khabib?!
A fight with McGregor will be easiest in Lightweight division for Khabib. Everybody saw what Chad Mendes did to McGregor, but he only did it for one round. We can do the same for three rounds, or five rounds. This guy is very easy for us. We have another level of grappling and ground control. Nobody can play that game with Khabib. We will do what we want in this fight.
The two easiest fights for Khabib are Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor. Khabib’s style is very dangerous for these guys. But Khabib doesn’t decide; the company does. And they decided Diaz, because for them it’s easier to promote two guys who always talk a lot. It’s a business fight. But for us, McGregor fight would show how good Khabib is.
There are a lot of questions around the Dos Anjos injury. If you remember how good they promoted the fight versus Aldo. But they didn’t promote the RDA fight like this. It’s like they knew before that he would fight with Diaz. You can say a lot of things around McGregor, the company is working on his name. And we are ready any time in the future to show that he isn’t a guy who can be on top of the Lightweight division.
For us now, we only want to beat Tony Ferguson and to show that Khabib didn’t change due to 2 years without a fight. In fact, he only changed in a better way by becoming more physically and mentally strong. We want to show that we are still on top of this lightweight division.