UFC president Dana White claims last summer that Conor Mcgregor showed interest to defend his lightweight title against undefeated Khabib Nurmagomedov in Russian after his highly anticipated boxing match with Floyd Mayweather. (Quote via MMAJunkie)
“Conor tells me, ‘I want Floyd Mayweather then I want f***ing Khabib in Russia’. How do you not love him? How do you not love Conor McGregor? Amazing.”
However, McGregor lost to Mayweather, made a hefty paycheck for the fight, a few months later jump the fence at Bellator 197 and confront referee Marc Goddard and most recently stormed the UFC 223 media day festivities by hurling a metal dolly at fighters bus which was carrying Khabib Nurmagomedov and several other UFC fighters. Due to his antics, he was landed in jail and ordered to return to court on June 14.
Mcgregor who last fought against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 and claim the lightweight title.
Newly crowned champ Khabib Nurmagomedov recently said the wheels for a fight with Mcgregor are already in motion.
Khabib is willing to wait awhile to face Irishman, but he won’t sit on the sidelines for too long. ‘Eagle’ also mentioned recently, he is open to fighting anyone if it’s not Mcgregor in the lightweight division. There are a handful of worthy combatants like Kevin Lee, Dustin Poirier threw their names in the hat to meet Nurmagomedov.
McGregor’s striking coach, Owen Roddy during his interview with the BBC MMA Show (Quotes via SportsJoe.ie), said Irishman really does want to lock horns with Khabib Nurmagomedov in his native Russia after training like Rocky Balboa in Siberia:
“Conor’s a mad thing. He’s very funny. He turned around to me and he’s like, ‘There’s talk of me fighting Khabib. I might do it in Russia’.
“And he’s like, ‘You know what we’ll do? We’ll do it like Rocky, we’ll go to Siberia. We’ll train in the snow and I’ll get one of those yokes that you put on your shoulders to get the lats’.”
Coach broke into laughter after hearing Mcgregor’s ambitious story how he will fight Khabib in Russia, that sound crazy but Irishman was serious as per Owen.
“He was serious. He was like, ’Let’s go!’
”I says, ’I’m not going to Siberia!’
”But that’s it. He could go. Conor does mad things, and that’s what we love him for. There’s not many people would do that but Conor’s like,’I’ll go to Russia and fight you in your back garden just to prove who I am’.”
This fight sounds great, but before that Mcgregor has to clear his legal situation, no doubt this will be the biggest fight in the history of UFC.
