We’re starting to notice a trend here. Conor McGregor? No. Georges St-Pierre? Yes.
We’re just two weeks away from UFC 257 on January 16th featuring Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier on Fight Island. As if that fight wasn’t big enough of a deal, that time period also marks when UFC president Dana White will sit down with ‘retired’ lightweight champ Khabib Nurmagomedov to discuss the Dagestani fighter’s future.
Unfortunately, we have our doubts White will be able to draw “The Eagle” back into the cage, because he keeps offering up the same thing: A Conor McGregor fight.
“Khabib vs McGregor, it is a big fight, it is the rematch to make but there are a lot of ifs,” White told the Schmo recently. “‘If’ Khabib still wants to fight, ‘if’ Conor beats Poirier and ‘if’ I can get Khabib to accept that fight. Maybe he wants to fight somebody else, he doesn’t want to fight Conor, we will see.”
Well, considering Khabib has shot down a rematch every time it’s come up, we think he may not want to fight Conor. As for who he might actually be willing to return and fight? It’s not hard to figure that out either: Khabib has called repeatedly for a fight with Georges St-Pierre. In a TMZ interview with Nurmagomedov’s manager (via SCMP MMA) Ali Abdelaziz, that was once again confirmed.
“Beating Conor McGregor, does it mean anything?” Abdelaziz asked. “I don’t know. It means a lot for the fans. Financially it’s a huge fight. But you know Khabib, it’s hard to persuade him financially. My man Dana White and Khabib, they’re gonna meet in Abu Dhabi and then after that Khabib is gonna come to Vegas and they’re gonna go to dinner and we’re gonna figure it out what they wanna do. This is big boys business, I’m gonna let them do what they do and I’ll be a fan.”
“Honestly, I think if Georges St-Pierre is serious about coming back to fight, I could see it happening,” he continued. “That would get Khabib up. But he beat the s**t out of Conor, he did everything he wanted to do. He beat him in the striking department, he beat him in the wrestling department, the grappling department. He broke his soul, he took his will.”
“Khabib all the time says this to me, we don’t really care about Conor,” Abdelaziz said. “Somebody might say ‘100 million dollars.’ I don’t think that will persuade Khabib. If Khabib doesn’t wanna fight, I don’t want to pressure Khabib or ask him too much, I let him be. I believe in Dana White. If anyone can get it done, it’s Dana White. These two guys Dana and Khabib, they really love each other, they respect each other, Dana’s really good about getting people to do things.”
“But also Dana is very respectful for peoples’ wishes. If Khabib said, ‘Dana, I’m done. I love you, thank you for everything,’ Dana will be the first guy to thank him and try to put him in the Hall of Fame or do some nice things for him.”
While Khabib vs. McGregor 2 is obviously a huge money fight, so is Khabib vs. Georges St-Pierre. Khabib wants it. Georges wants it. But because White harbors a grudge against St-Pierre, the UFC refuses to even consider the fight. So while the obvious answer would be to get out of the way and let two legends in the sport fight, we have our doubts this is a superfight you’re going to see in 2021. Which is too bad, because it’s most likely the only matchup that will get Khabib Nurmagomedov back into the Octagon.