UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov believes that “The Notorious” Conor McGregor knows how to talk the talk but not how to walk the walk and that when it comes to a rematch against him, Conor McGregor does not truly want to walk into a cage trapped with The Eagle.
At UFC 229, Khabib Nurmagomedov submitted Conor McGregor in front of the largest home viewing audience in UFC pay per view history. Since then, McGregor has been lobbying for a rematch on the outside. But on the inside, Khabib believes that McGregor actually wants nothing less than to re-experience his trials of that fateful October night (via RT Sport):
“Honestly I don’t think he wants that fight,” Khabib said in a fan Q&A session. “How is that so? I beat him up for four rounds. I beat him and choked him and he tapped. It was a sign he didn’t want to be there, ‘let me go please’ and all that. And now he wants the rematch,” Nurmagomedov replied.
Khabib has recently proclaimed that in order for McGregor to earn a rematch, he would need to win 10 fights in a row, the same amount of UFC fights Khabib won before being granted a title shot. Khabib has never been one for figurative language, so the 10 figure may not have been a hyperbole, but even if that number were cut in half, the champion believes McGregor lacks the inward fortitude that Khabib had when he was pursuing a title shot:
“First of all, he has to earn it,” Khabib said. “We’re in the fourth year since his last victory. It’s been three years and now we’re in the fourth. In order to fight for the title, I had to win 10 fights in a row in the UFC. That’s not counting the 16 victories I had outside the UFC. In every fight, I earned it not with my mouth but with my actions. That’s where we’re different – he talks about it, I just do it.”
What do you think the odds are that we ever see a rematch between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor?
