Midnight Mania! Khabib Doubles Down On ‘No Reason’ Ring Girls

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Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Khabib Nurmagomedov is in a strange spot. By retiring while at the absolute pinnacle of the sport, Nurmagomedov has left the combat sports world left wanting. Usually, the exact opposite approach is taken, as our legends stick around until things get ugly, weird, or both!

Between the two options, Nurmagomedov clearly made the better call. Plus, he’s still around the sport constantly as a coach and training partner of elite talents like Islam Makhachev, Luke Rockhold, and his numerous Dagestani cousins. Finally, Nurmagomedov is in charge of his own fight promotion, Eagle FC.

An unfortunate side effect of this combination of interest in “The Eagle” and access to the former champion is that Nurmagomedov gets asked countless questions. As a result, we now know Nurmagomedov’s opinion on everything from Jose Aldo’s resurgence to “impudent lout” Tony Ferguson.

Some of these responses have caused a bit of controversy. Notably, Nurmagomedov received some backlash for stating that ring girls are “the most useless people in martial arts.” Khabib recently explained those words further, ultimately doubling down while still reiterating that it’s merely his opinion.

“Couple month ago, someone ask me about… I have promotion. I have my own promotion Eagle Fighting Championship and someone ask about why there’s no ring girls there. I say because I think (there’s) no reason. It’s my opinion,” Nurmagomedov explained (via MMANews). “I’m born with this, I grew up with this, and I have straight my opinion. Sometimes, like, people, when I say something, they don’t agree with this. But, who cares? I don’t care because I know I am right. In my mind. Because everybody have their own views on something.”

We’ll have to wait and see if Arianny Celeste issues another fiery response.

Insomnia

Mackenzie Dern is absolutely nasty on the mat.

Islam Makhachev with a cheeky response to Dan Hooker’s prior trash talk:

Some awesome scrambling from both wrestlers:

Marlon Vera proposed a much more watchable main event idea than having Aspen Ladd fill-in a week after nearly dying on the scale.

Kamaru Usman gets too much hate for some occasionally awkward moments on the mic. The champ seems like a good dude and is immensely talented.

If bored, click through to the comments and count how many fiancée references there are:

Am I jaded or are the next three events scheduled pretty uninteresting? Obviously the fights themselves can always be fun (and hopefully will be!), but the stakes are so low.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

Measured with the jab, quite literally froze her in place with a counter cross, then put her down with a high kick — gorgeous combo!

Cool knockout and all, but this doesn’t much look like Karate to this writer (who knows nothing about the promotion outside of GSP and sweet highlight clips).

A bunch of knockouts from up-and-coming boxer Edgar Berlanga:

Random Land

I’m at like a nine.

Midnight Music: I thought this manic post-Parliament/Funkadelic track from George Clinton was a good bit of fun.

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.