Khabib Nurmagomedov didn’t have the best camp for his last fight in mixed martial arts.
Nurmagomedov successfully defended his lightweight title in October after a dominant performance over Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 which eventually led to a second-round submission win.
“The Eagle” would retire soon after with many believing that his win over Gaethje was his best performance yet in the Octagon.
That was despite having the worst camp ever according to head coach Javier Mendez who revealed his fighter had the mumps for two weeks before breaking his toe leading up to the fight.
Nurmagomedov elaborated on that and revealed a shocking image of his face being swelled up due to the mumps.
“It was the 9 of September in the morning. When I woke up and I had the mumps already,” Nurmagomedov said in a recent chat with Russian heavyweight Magomed Ismailov. “… I started feeling worse on the plane [to Dubai] and when we arrive, I get a high fever. It was getting really bad and after a while, I was taken to the hospital, and I had intensive care for five days. It was really bad.”
Nurmagomedov Thought Of Pulling Out
According to the video’s subtitles, Nurmagomedov said he also broke his thumb, though it’s possible it’s a translation error as he may have been speaking about his broken toe.
Regardless, all the issues he suffered nearly led him to pull out of the fight.
“Well, we even wanted to cancel the fight,” Nurmagomedov added. “I was having so much [to deal with] with this fight, the disease and fractures. At the end of the day, we decided to keep the fight on. It was a hard camp.”
It’s all the more impressive that despite those issues, Nurmagomedov was able to comfortably dispose of Gaethje in the manner that he did.
You can watch the full chat below:
