During their prime, a UFC lightweight title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson seemed certain but after five times of attempting to put the fight together, the fight shockingly never came to fruition.
In 2020, the greatest UFC lightweight fighter of all time, Khabib Nurmagomedov surprisingly announced that he was retiring from the sport following the devastating loss of his father and coach, Abdulmanap.
‘The Eagle’ only defended his 155lb title three times and retired after beating Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 after promising his mother he wouldn’t carry on his career without his father in his corner.
Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images Khabib Nurmagomedov reveals how Tony Ferguson might have beaten him
Although Khabib was the most dominant champion to ever step foot inside the UFC Octagon, prior to every bout, his opponents were given hope if they were able to keep the fight against him on the feet.
Tony Ferguson was always widely regarded as the most likely fighter to beat Khabib during their primes because of his submission threat on the ground and his unpredictability on the feet.
The two were scheduled to fight a staggering five times, with botched weight cuts, freak accidents and a global pandemic all putting a stop to the highly anticipated matchup.
Despite that, talking at an event in the UK, ‘The Eagle’ claimed that the only way Ferguson would’ve beaten him is if he landed a ‘lucky punch’.
“I feel a little bit sad but at the same time, I always understood that my game is worse for him. He doesn’t have wrestling, he doesn’t have grappling, what was he going to do with me? How was he gonna stop me?” Khabib questioned on the Inspire Me Podcast.
“The only chance he had to stop me was with a lucky punch, like with everybody. Like with Conor, (Dustin) Poirier, with Justin Gaethje. Everybody talks about like, ‘They can stop him if Khabib is gonna get lucky punch’ but other stuff, how were they gonna stop me?
“When he fought with Danny Castillo, Beneil Dariush, Justin Gaethje, Charles Oliveira, all these guys mauled him. He didn’t have wrestling defense, he didn’t have good grappling, I’m a little bit sad (it didn’t happen),” Khabib admitted.
Ferguson’s career continued when Khabib surprisingly retired, and he is still fighting under the UFC banner now, but unfortunately, he is on a historical eight-fight losing skid, having not won since 2019.
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Following his retirement from putting on the UFC gloves, the 35-year-old is now one of the best coaches in MMA, and his student, Umar Nurmagomedov is next in line to fight for the UFC bantamweight title.
At UFC 306 in under a month, Sean O’Malley defends his strap against Merab Dvalishvili in a history-making event at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Umar has been guaranteed to face the winner after recently picking up a win over Cory Sandhagen at UFC Abu Dhabi.
With Khabib serving as the 28-year-old’s head coach, he revealed following Umar’s win that he would prefer the title fight to come against Dvalishvili as it would be a ‘White Papakha vs Black Papakha’.
A Papakha is the famous head-wear that ‘The Eagle’ wore for the entirety of his UFC career, and a variation of the papakha is also worn by the Georgian, Dvalishvili.
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