Nurmagomedov: Now just one champion, McGregor needs to meet me

Conor McGregor never defended his lightweight title, so an interim fight was set between Tony Ferguson and Kevin Lee; #1 contender Khabib Nurmagomedov was out with an injury. Ferguson won. When McGregor still didn’t step up, so a fight was made between Ferguson and Nurmagomedov for the unified title.

With a week to go, Ferguson tripped on a wire, and tore a ligament in his knee. Strawweight champ Max Holloway stepped up but was unable to make weight, and declared medically unfit the day before the fight. Anthony Pettis was offered the fight, but held out for too much money, and lost the title opportunity. Paul Felder was rejected by the NYSAC as he was unranked. And then Al Iaquinta emerged. And he put on a tremendous display of gameness. But after an insane week ‘The Eagle’ won, becoming the first Russian UFC champion.

If you want to be champion – undisputed, undefeated – you have to be able to beat anybody, said Nurmagomedov, as transcribed by Les Carpenter for The Guardian. All week I stayed calm.

Now just one champion. No more fake champions. No champions who don’t defend the title. Now the UFC has a champion and this champion wants to defend his title.

Georges St-Pierre, Conor or Tony it doesn’t matter. All these guys are tough.

We had one game plan: pressure, take him down, work on ground. But I feel I was faster than him and I want to use this. When you do something for 25 minutes inside the cage it’s better for you than training 10 weeks in the the gym. The experience is different.

McGregor’s wheels infamously came off this week. Nurmagomedov had words with McGregor’s SBGi teammate Artem Lobov, and when Notorious heard about it he and over a dozen hapless hangers on flew over and attempted to attack Nurmagomedov with all the skill and planning of an eight-year-old who lost his temper during a game of cops and robbers. Nurmagomedov doesn’t want to turn into a McGregor.

But he does want to fight himm after a world media tour to Tokyo, Moscow, Dublin, Los Angeles, and Rio leading up to a fight in Russia, this year.

I told you guys, he said, I’m going to make him humble.

Nurmagomedov, however, doesn’t want to be McGregor.

I don’t want this belt changing me, he said. I want to stay focused. Like next month is Ramadan. After Ramadan I keep training and want to defend the title before the end of the year. I want to be the same Khabib before belt and after belt. This is not about me. This is about all the people around me.

If he wants to be lightweight champion, he needs to meet me.

McGregor has been silent, appropriate for someone out on $50,000 bail.