Things are really starting to heat back up between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov.
McGregor engaged in some pretty serious mental warfare leading up to their fight at UFC 229 in October of 2018, while Nurmagomedov had the serene look of a man who knew it was Khabib Time. Unfortunately, just beating McGregor didn’t give Khabib the satisfaction he was looking for, so he eagle-jumped off the cage into Conor’s corner and ended up suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
For how long? No one knows. Rumors have him being barred from fighting for anywhere between six months and two years. Tune in on January 29th when the commission hearing goes down. For now we’ll just have to enjoy the back and forths between McGregor and Khabib on social media in lieu of a rematch. There’s certainly been enough.
In the latest round, Khabib got together with some of the guys who jumped McGregor for a little photoshoot. Not long after, McGregor put out an Instagram rant telling Nurmagomedov “don’t be a bitch!”
Of course Khabib responded.
”You will live with this shame all your life, bi…” Nurmagomedov wrote under a picture of him tapping Conor with a neck crank.
A rematch between McGregor and Nurmagomedov seems like the obvious next move from the UFC, and Khabib’s manager seemed to agree, stating “We need somebody who can sell pay-per-views.” Welp, unless “The Eagle” is ready to move up to light heavyweight and challenge Jon Jones, there’s not a whole lotta needle movers out there to fight. Although it is worth noting that Khabib himself still sounds willing to consider fighting real contenders. Whether that translates into ink on a bout agreement remains to be seen.
For now we remain in a holding pattern, waiting to see what the fallout is from McGregor’s UFC 229 troll job. He may not have managed to make Khabib crazy during their fight, but the brawl afterwards proved he definitely got under the Dagestani’s skin.