In their heyday, a UFC lightweight title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson seemed certain, but after five attempts to organize the fight, shockingly it never materialized.
In 2020, the greatest UFC lightweight fighter of all time, Khabib Nurmagomedov, made the surprise announcement that he would retire from the sport following the devastating loss of his father and trainer Abdulmanap.
“The Eagle” only defended his barweight title three times and retired from the fight following his victory over Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 after promising his mother that he would not continue his career without his father’s support.
Khabib Nurmagomedov reveals how Tony Ferguson could have defeated him
Even though Khabib was the most dominant champion to ever enter the UFC Octagon, his opponents would get their hopes up before each fight if they could survive the fight against him standing up.
Tony Ferguson was always considered the fighter most likely to defeat Khabib in his prime due to his submission threat on the ground and his unpredictability while standing.
The two were supposed to compete against each other a whopping five times, but failed weight-loss attempts, crazy accidents and a global pandemic put an end to the eagerly awaited duel.
Nevertheless, “The Eagle” claimed at an event in Great Britain that Ferguson could only have defeated him if he had landed a “lucky blow”.
“I’m a little sad, but at the same time I always understood that my game is worse for him. He has no wrestling, he has no grappling, what should he do with me? How should he stop me?” Khabib asked on the Inspire Me podcast.
“He only had one chance to stop me, and that was the case with everyone. Like Conor, (Dustin) Poirier, with Justin Gaethje. Everyone talks about how if Khabib gets a lucky punch they can stop him, but other things: how could they have stopped me?
“When he fought Danny Castillo, Beneil Dariush, Justin Gaethje and Charles Oliveira, all those guys were taking him down. He didn’t have good wrestling defense, he couldn’t grapple well, I’m a little sad (that didn’t happen),” Khabib admitted.
Ferguson’s career continued after Khabib’s surprise retirement, and he still fights under the UFC banner, but unfortunately he is on a historic eight-fight losing streak and hasn’t won since 2019.
Khabib Nurmagomedov could become world champion trainer
After retiring from UFC fighting, the 35-year-old is now one of the best trainers in MMA and his student Umar Nurmagomedov is next in line to fight for the UFC bantamweight title.
At UFC 306 in less than a month, Sean O’Malley defends his title against Merab Dvalishvili in a history-making event at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Umar is guaranteed to face the winner after recently picking up a win over Cory Sandhagen at UFC Abu Dhabi.
Khabib is the 28-year-old’s head coach and he announced after Umar’s victory that he would prefer to fight for the title against Dvalishvili, as it would then be a duel of “White Papakha against Black Papakha”.
A papakha is the famous headgear that “The Eagle” wore throughout his UFC career. A variant of the papakha is also worn by Georgian Dvalishvili.
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