Just because Khabib Nurmagomedov is currently irate with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) for only “taking care” of current Featherweight and Lightweight champion, Conor, McGregor, it doesn’t mean he’s about to jump ship.
Even if he stands to earn a cool $5 million with another mixed martial arts (MMA) organization.
That’s according to his manager Ali Abdel-Aziz, who stopped by The MMA Hour to declare that Khabib has an offer form a Russian promotion to compete for the aforementioned sum. But, since “The Eagle” is under contract with UFC, he will stay loyal and honor it.
But, it just goes to show that like Conor, Khabib is also in high demand.
“At the end of the day, Conor is going to get what he wants. But, Khabib is not going to go fight any other guy if there is no belt on the line. He’s not fighting nobody,” said Ali.
“You have to understand, too, Khabib is getting; Khabib is under a UFC contract and I will never break a UFC contract and sign with another promotion. He got offered $5 million from a promotion in Russia to fight. You understand? That’s how much the man can get. We would never do anything like that because we will always honor UFC contract,” concluded Ali.
For the record, Khabib earned $48,000 for his fight against Darrell Horcher at UFC on FOX 19, though no word yet on how much he banked for recently defeating Michael Johnson at UFC 205.
That said, Ali is adamant Khabib is not about the money, as his eyes are solely focused on winning a UFC world title, and it doesn’t matter to him who is holding the belt when his time comes. And while Nurmagomedov recently threatened to leave UFC if he doesn’t get a shot a the strap in his next fight, his father recently sang a different tune, saying that “The Eagle” would gladly take on Tony Ferguson in the interim.
“We will not wait longer than three months,”Khabib Nurmagomedov told MMANews.info (via Bloody Elbow). “We’ll wait for three months and at the fourth, we need an opponent. Let them give us any opponent. Even at 77 kgs (welterweight).”
“At this moment, it is better to fight with Ferguson — just to nail this thing down.”
Khabib and Ferguson were booked to tango on two separate occasions, but injuries to each fighter canceled the proposed matchups.
The waiting game begins.