Undefeated UFC bantamweight Umar Nurmagomedov recently spoke about his cousin Khabib’s retirement from coaching.
Earlier last week, news surfaced that Khabib Nurmagomedov is planning to back out of MMA life ‘completely and irrevocably’.
Nurmagomedov’s manager confirmed he won’t be cornering Makhachev against Volkanovski:
“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”
Umar Nurmagomedov joined the UFC almost two years ago and has racked up three wins since then. He is going to compete against Raoni Barcelos at UFC on ESPN+ 75 tomorrow.
Umar told TSN he’s not surprised Khabib wants to back out of MMA life:
“I’m not surprised, we always knew and we talked about this.”
“I think this guy has in his blood coaching fighters. I don’t think he can stop it, he will still control me and my brother, other guys, but not in the same way, you understand? He doesn’t want to travel, doesn’t want to come to camps and stay with us a couple of months.”
Umar talked about the reason for Khabib’s retirement from coaching, saying that constant traveling was the main factor. This is true since Khabib is involved in coaching and cornering many fighters across different promotions.
He said: “Everything is the same, but he just stopped because of too many flights, too many travels.”
It is known that Khabib is a family man and this is also why he retired from competing in the cage to take care of his mother. Umar said that Khabib will now have more time to focus on his family back in Dagestan.
“He will not travel too much. He will take care of himself, his family, his mother. I think these are very hard things, like traveling too much, cornering everybody, this is not easy.