KHABIB and MCGREGOR set to clash at UFC 229

Khabib Nurmagomedov and his team have reportedly been in intense negotiations with Conor McGregor for some time and it looks like a deal has finally been struck for the super fight in the T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas on October 6.

MMA Team Dagestan, a reliable source of UFC information broke the initial news of the negotiations and yesterday seemed to confirm the UFC 229 fight time when they tweeted “The biggest fight in the history of MMA will take place!!”.

Fans across the world have been fantasy booking this fight for some time and if it is confirmed, UFC 229 will be the Irishman’s first fight since winning the lightweight title and becoming the UFC’s first simultaneous dual weight world title at UFC 205 in November 2016.

The “Notorious One” was then famously stripped of the lightweight title almost 15 months ago when he refused to agree to his mandatory title defence opponent. His absence from the octagon since this was in part due to the cross-sport boxing match he fought against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year in which he lost in a TKO.

The potential announcement comes just three months after McGregor and his team stormed a UFC 223 press day and threw a cart through a bus window containing Khabib and a group of fellow fighters, injuring Michael Chiesa and Ray Borg in the process. There as of yet has been no custodial resolution to the incident and the Dubliner is due to appear in court in Brooklyn on July 26^th to answer charges of assault and criminal mischief. This shouldn’t be a stumbling block to any fight with Nurmagomedov as the legal teams are confident a plea deal can be arranged.

Khabib himself has not fought since succeeding McGrergor as lightweight champion at UFC 223, beating Al Iaquinta via unanimous decision to take his record to 26-0-0 in the octagon.

Both fighters have been active on social media in recent days hinting at a possible clash. The 29 year old Russian took to Instagram, posting a workout picture of a mounted “ground and pound” with a cryptic caption “smash him #soon” while McGregor also got in on the act, posting a picture of his wrestling coach Sergey Pikulskiy and Kosti Gnusariov to his Instagram page following a workout.