Khabib Nurmagomedov had dedicated his life to becoming champion as soon as he signed the dotted line to face Tony Ferguson at “UFC 209”. Nurmagomedov was prepared to become the interim champion before challenging Conor McGregor for the undisputed lightweight championship but all chances of that happening in the near future went up in smoke when he was forced to pull out.
Nurmagomedov fell ill just days before his fight with Ferguson which resulted in a difficult weight cut. Instead of contacting Dana White so he could inform the right doctors of Nurmagomedov’s health issues, Nurmagomedov and his team decided to go to the hospital on their own and were treated poorly. While the whole debacle has already painted Khabib and his team in a negative light, UFC’s Kevin Lee believes there’s more to the story. He told Bloody Elbow:
“I think he’s got a really smart manager. I know Ali really well. He’s smart; they’re trying to keep that ‘0’ intact. That’s all they’re looking forward to. To me, there’s no other reason. It was like 4:00 A.M. or something when they took him to the hospital. If that’s the case, then he cut weight the night before, and woke up and wasn’t feeling good, or had kidney malfunction or something. Which means that he’s just being unprofessional, which I can’t see why somebody at this level would be unprofessional.”
