A stunning revelation surfaced earlier this month when it was confirmed that Khabib Nurmagomedov will be stepping away from the world of MMA to dedicate more of his time to his family and non MMA related business ventures.
The result was hilarious. Fanboys online were so upset as to infer they knew what Khabib’s father would’ve wanted better than Khabib himself.
According to Russian reporter Igor Lazorin, Nurmagomedov might be completely and irrevocably done with MMA.
Nurmagomedov also shared the reports of his withdrawal from MMA on his instagram stories, seemingly confirming the reports.
Khabib will also miss Islam Makhachev’s attempt to become UFC’s Pound for pound Champion.
“I think he made it clear and it was such a balanced decision that he approached for a long time. There is no need to look for any behind-the-scenes reasons or radical incidents there. He just came to this. He ended his career in 2020 but travels during training camps, during fights. Out of 12 months, he is 10 absent from home, constantly on these trips. And he came to such a decision that it was time to spend time with his family, devote time to children. And, most likely, he will miss this fight, yes,” – Khabib’s manager Rizvan Magomedov told Match TV.
On a recent episode of DC & RC, Khabib’s longtime friend and teammate Daniel Cormier shared his thoughts on Khabib’s withdrawal from the sport:
“I think Khabib’s there where he’s at a point in his life where he doesn’t want to miss the important moments in certain jobs. Take your weight for the important moments. And Khabib is a family guy that is not willing to give that away anymore. So he wants to spend more time with his children, with his wife, with his mother.”
“We obviously know how important his mom is to him being that she is the reason he walked away from the sport. So for me, it’s just another instance in which he shows why he’s so special. Because the allure of so many things”
“For him to say that these important moments mean more to me than the money and everything else just shows you how big is Khabib’s legacy is going to be forever because he coached his cousin Usman to a Bellator championship. He coached Islam to a UFC championship…”
“The guy is just a very smart, mixed martial arts mind and it showed in the results that he was getting as a coach, not only as an athlete inside the Octagon himself.”