UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has revealed when he plans to return to the Octagon.
His latest bout was the biggest fight thus far in his pro-MMA career and he had to go through some hurdles to make it happen. The main event of the UFC 223 pay-per-view event went through three official changes.
The UFC attempted to book Nurmagomedov against Tony Ferguson as well as Max Holloway in the main event for the lightweight title.
However, Holloway and Ferguson weren’t able to make the fight due to weight cutting issues or injury. Thus, they got Al Iaquinta to step in on short notice to take on the undefeated champ in the headliner. As many believed would happen, it did and Khabib ended up winning the fight along with the undisputed UFC lightweight title.
After the fight, the UFC champion stated that he was not planning to fight once again until November or December of this year.
However, that has all change as he stated during a live chat Tuesday that his team has started talks with the promotion to return at either for the September or October pay-per-view event.
He brought up potentially fighting on September 9 or October 6 but by looking at the calendar, there is not an event on the 9th of September. However, there is an event on September 8th, which is the upcoming UFC 228 pay-per-view event
The UFC 229 pay-per-view is set to take place on October 6th at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
Regarding his next opponent, that is up in the air but it should be noted that UFC President Dana White has gone on record that he would like to book the UFC lightweight champion against former lightweight and featherweight champion Conor McGregor.
The problem with that fight is due to McGregor’s status up in the air as he is currently dealing with some legal issues stemming from his infamous bus attack at UFC 223.
They could book him against Ferguson if he can get cleared in time after recovering from knee surgery.
“I don’t know when it’s going to be but now we talk about this with the UFC,” Nurmagomedov said (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “It’s going to be maybe 9 September or maybe 6 October. I don’t know about opponent – Conor [McGregor], GSP [Georges St-Pierre], whoever. It doesn’t matter, we’ll see. Next couple of weeks it’s going to be very fun because now we’re beginning to talk about my next fight with the UFC.”
“I feel great, I feel good,” Nurmagomedov said. “Now we have Ramadan. We’re training only at night. Feeling good, feeling great, my weight is good, my shape is good. I always train every day, sometimes two times.”
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