Dana White And Ali Abdelaziz Comment On Khabib vs McGregor TUF Talk
Khabib Nurmagomedov’s manager Ali Abdelaziz, says that a rematch between the UFC lightweight champion and Conor McGregor will never take place.
Abdelaziz was speaking with TMZ Sports (as transcribed by MMA Fighting) when he revealed that the UFC was hoping to have Khabib and Conor as coaches on an upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter.
“Last week Dana White called me,” Abdelaziz said. “He said, ‘Ali, what do you think if Khabib win, him and Conor do The Ultimate Fighter on ESPN?’ This is breaking news. I said, ‘I don’t know. I’ll think about it.’ And he said, of course, [vice versa] if Justin win.
“It would be Khabib versus Conor on The Ultimate Fighter, coaching. It would have been f***ing huge. Probably would have went to the hospital because he would have beat his ass and his whole team. Or Justin Gaethje versus [McGregor].”
Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Conor McGregor 2 Hinged On TUF Coaching Roles
Abdelaziz would continue to say, however, that Khabib opted to turn down the opportunity. According to the undefeated fighter from Dagestan, McGregor hasn’t earned a rematch with him.
“I talked with Khabib yesterday,” Abdelaziz continued. “He said, ‘This man is human trash. He’s like garbage. When you touch s***, you smell s***.’ He said, ‘He doesn’t earn the fight. You understand? He doesn’t earn the fight.’
“Listen, if Justin wins, whatever, and he wants the easy payday, yeah, go ahead and fight Conor if you want. But I don’t know if even Conor still in the conversations because Justin said, ‘I gotta give him an opportunity,’ but he didn’t want the fight.”
McGregor has been saying he plans on fighting Manny Pacquiao in the Middle East next. He also appears to be arranging a charity fight against Dustin Poirier in Ireland for December. It’s not clear if either of those two fights will actually come to fruition, however.
Ali Abdelaziz Takes Shot At Conor McGregor
Abdelaziz also commented on Conor sharing private messages with Dana White publicly about their fight negotiations.
“First of all, you know, as a man, the golden rule is if you have a private conversation with another man, you should never put this online,” Abdelaziz continued to say of McGregor. “This is a complete – a made-bitch, you understand? This is like a real-life bitch, like I’ve always been saying for all these years. I have a lot of text messages about people I don’t like, but I will never put it out there because it’s not even right to put it out there – it’s wrong.
“Second of all, January 2020 – actually, December 2019, we wanted to fight Conor. Conor said he’s not ready yet. When [Gaethje] heard he wanted to fight in January, Justin Gaethje, he was higher ranked than ‘Cowboy’ [Cerrone] by far, and he choose to fight Cowboy instead of Justin. Justin called him out on social media. Not one time we saw Conor respond to him.”
Abdelaziz continued to hit out at McGregor, calling him a liar, and stating that the sport has moved on without him.
“All this nonsense about him wanting to fight Justin, this is full of s***,” Abdelaziz said. “He wanted to fight ‘Cowboy,’ Diego Sanchez, Matt Brown, he wanted to fight all these old veterans. Realistically, in their prime, they’ll probably beat his ass.
“But in a way, he showed you what kind of weak man he is. He’s a liar. He’s everything you don’t want to be as a man. He’s not a man. He lost all the value. Guess what? Sports have moved on. The UFC has moved on. We have moved on. When Justin Gaethje turned down probably 7 or 8 million dollars payday [to fight McGregor], it was just for his integrity. To show, ‘Guess what? I can do it better.’ Justin Gaethje’s a f***ing legend, man.”
While Abdelaziz isn’t ruling out Gaethje fighting McGregor, he states that Khabib will never fight the Irishman.
“Hey, if he wants to do The Ultimate Fighter with he can,” Abdelaziz said. “If he wants to do Kamaru Usman, The Ultimate Fighter with Khamzat Chimaev, yes he can. If Justin choose to, that’s okay too.
“He can forget about Khabib. He can forget about the rematch. Done. Dead. Never. Khabib will never fight him.”
Dana White Responds To Conor McGregor’s Recent Comments
Speaking to Barstool Sports, UFC president Dana White confirmed Abdelaziz’s comments.
“He was going to do it until Conor did all of this s***,” Dana said. “I almost had it. That’s what I was saying. I felt like I was in a good place and I was going to get that done. We were going to do The Ultimate Fighter on ESPN and f***ing do the rematch. But you know, Conor blew that … Khabib said f*** him.”
Dana went on to say that the promotion has offered McGregor and Poirier the fight they agreed on, on social media.
“[Conor] called out Poirier for a fight with in Dublin for charity. So we offered them both a fight. We offered Dustin and Conor a fight, so we’re waiting to hear back from both of them.”
McGregor has other ideas, however, and soon after Dana’s comments, posted a fight poster for his ‘martial art sparring match’ with Poirier.
Following his loss to Khabib at UFC 229, McGregor didn’t fight again for almost 15 months. He returned to the Octagon in January and needed just 40 seconds to defeat ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone.
As for Khabib, he returned to the cage 11 months after defeating McGregor. He submitted Dustin Poirier in the 3rd round of their fight from Abu Dhabi at UFC 242. He is set to defend his title against the interim champion, Gaethje, later this month at UFC 254.
Do you agree with Ali Abdelaziz that a Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Conor McGregor rematch will never happen?
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