The former UFC star Khabib Nurmagomedov has retired from professional MMA career. He recently reflected on his last fight in UFC. UFC 263 PPV Buys Stun Israel Adesanya Fans
Khabib discusses his last match in UFC
Khabib has always been respectful to his opponents except few.
He retired last year after getting a win over Justin Gaethje, whom he respected a lot.He spoke about being reluctant to hurt fighters he loved and respected in an interview with RT Sport MMA.
He also revealed which fights were the hardest for him to face. He was asked about four fighters, in particular, Edson Barboza, Justin Gaethje, Dustin Poirier and Al Iaquinta.
He said:
“Out of all of them, I think my last opponent. Well, I can point out two of them, Justin Gaethje and Michael Johnson. When I trapped his hand and went for Kimura, I could’ve broken his arm. I told him to give up two or three times. I was executing the move very carefully, because if you break an arm that way, it will never be the same. So I was very careful, rolling it very slowly and just asked him to give it up.”
Khabib Nurmagomedov then spoke about his UFC 254 title fight with Gaethje and revealed why he didn’t want to hurt him that much:
“As for Justin, first I went for his arm, and only then I moved onto the triangle choke. I realized he would not give up and I didn’t want to cripple his hand so I went for the triangle choke. His parents were there in attendance, his father, his mother, in the front row. Footage doesn’t show it but when I entered the cage, I could see them sitting there and looking at me. So those two guys, I didn’t want to hurt too bad.”
The Russian fighter recently dropped hints about transitioning to a footballer. We will see what is next for him.
