Khabib Nurmagomedov encourages former rivals to retire
Khabib listed a bunch of former opponents as well as fighters from his era in the UFC to retire. He appeared on a clip in the ‘Pound 4 Pound’ podcast where he spoke about his thoughts on his former opponents.
The list of names
After appearing on a clip in the ‘Pound 4 Pound’ podcast, Khabib decided to list a bunch of names that are quite popular in the lightweight division stating they need to retire. When being interviewed by Henry Cejudo names such as Justin Gaethje, Khabib, Dustin Poirier, and Tony Ferguson were all mentioned by the former champ. He proceeded to add “We have to recognise the real things” meaning they need to make way for the new generation of lightweights or they are all getting too old to keep fighting.
Nurmagomedov talks about the diamond
Of the fighters mentioned, ‘The Eagle’ seemed to go in on Dustin ‘The Diamond’ Poirier who recently lost when challenging for the lightweight title. He harshly stated, “I think Poirier has to stop fighting.” This would be a bold statement considering a lot of fans thought Poirer’s performance against the current lightweight champion Islam Makachev was promising, despite the loss. The Eagle has crossed paths with Poirier before back in 2019 when Khabib defeated him via submission, so he may have more of an insight having shared the cage with him.
Champs Thoughts
The thought process of the UFC legend makes sense considering Khabib retired back in 2020 after defeating Justin Gaethje. He promised his mother he would not fight again without his father in his corner. He was only 32 when he retired and has not stepped back into the octagon since. Since then he has just been a coach to other fighters within his camp like Islam Makachev and Umar Nurmagomedov.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
