Top-ranked UFC lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov has been out of action since last November’s UFC 205, but ‘The Eagle’ is finally healed up from his latest set of ailments and looking to return to the Octagon.
The brutalizing grappler was set to take on current interim champion Tony Ferguson for the second-place title at March’s UFC 209, but a failed weight cut forced him out of the bout and into the hospital. He was reportedly offered yet another booking versus Ferguson at October 7’s UFC 216, but the lasting effects of the draining cut coupled with a back surgery left him unable to compete yet again.
So Ferguson fought Kevin Lee for the interim lightweight title instead, and despite a harrowingly difficult weight cut of his own, ‘The Motown Phenom’ was able to use his size and strength to ground Ferguson and rain down some significant damage in the first two rounds. In the third, however, Lee clearly tired from the staph infection that had plagued his cut and succumbed to a triangle choke from Ferguson.
Nurmagomedov is back making the media rounds, and he told Ariel Helwani on this week’s episode of “The MMA Hour” that Lee lost the fight because he fought like a ‘chicken’ and ‘gave up’:
“I think [Ferguson] won because Kevin Lee was fighting with him like chicken. That’s why he won. [Lee] talked too much. He was not focused on the fight; he was focused on, I think, promoting the fight. When the fight was beginning, first round, [Lee] beat [Ferguson], and second round, [Lee] stayed with him in his distance, he ate a lot of jabs, and third round, he gave up, because he doesn’t have conditioning. That’s why.”
There’s no doubting Lee did gas at UFC 216, as he admitted as much in between the second and third rounds. Khabib believes this would never happen to him, and the gameplan to beating a rangy, unorthodox striker like Ferguson is to get in his face and take him down, something that Lee was having success with early.
The difference according to ‘The Eagle’ is that he will never tire nor get submitted, a belief he insisted his AKA teammates Daniel Cormier and Luke Rockhold would attest to:
“(Rafael) dos Anjos and Kevin Lee fought with him at his distance. That’s why these guys [lost to] him,” Nurmagomedov said. “But what happens if Ferguson fights a fighter like me, who all the time tries to take him down, smash him on the ground, and never, never stop? All my life, in my amateur career, professional 24 fights, I never tire. Never, ever. In training, amateur fights, and professional fights, I never get tired.
“All my life, I never tire, I never lose, and I never give up. In training, in amateur fights, in professional fights, I’ve never given up. Never. Nobody has choked me, nobody has submitted me. Never, ever, in all my life. I’m training with a lot of fighters from different weight classes — heavyweight, welterweight, lightweight. You can ask ‘DC,’ you can ask Luke Rockhold, all fighters: I never give up and I never get tired. This is what I want to say about this.”
Few doubt Nurmagomedov’s sheer grappling advantage over any lightweight in MMA right now, but the 24-0 Dagestani’s problems have always been outside of the cage, as a long list of injuries and weight-cutting issues have limited him to just two fights in the last three years.
But in spite of those problems, he believes he’s in a similar spot as to where he was at around this time last year, where he beat Michael Johnson handily at UFC 205 and was headed for a bout with Ferguson to find out who would fight Conor McGregor for the title. He’s confident he can get both fights, but admitted he needs to keep his weight in check more this time around:
“It’s a very tough sport. Nobody knows (what happens behind the scenes).
“Last time when I had to fight with Tony, I thought, ‘I’m confident 100 percent the fight will happen, and I have to beat Tony to take the belt, and then at the end of the year I’m going to fight with Conor.’ But everybody knows what happened. And now I have the same feeling. I have the same feeling, and next time I have to stay a little bit careful, more control my weight, more control my health and my everything.”
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