Khabib Nurmagomedov believes there’s been a decline in MMA since his retirement last year.
The former pound-for-pound great is happy in retired life, and has continued his fathers legacy of coaching the up-and-coming talent from Dagestan. Khabib openly admitted that he doesn’t watch many of fights these days, due to the conflict of time-zones, and the passion he once had no longer burning as it did.
“Maybe it’s because the flame inside of me went out, but I think there’s been a dip in MMA,” he said to UFC Russia. “That’s what I think, I can be wrong. Everyone has their viewpoint. I think the flame went out a little, that there was a decline. There will always be stars, UFC’s PR machine is strong. Say what you will but they created a powerful machine in the last 30 years. They’ll ignite the flame. But I don’t wake up early to watch fights any more.”
The 34-year-old did enlighten fans to which fights did force him to wake up at 5am to watch live in his home country of Russia:
Which Fights Does Khabib Nurmagomedov Enjoy Watching?
“I was very interested in [Kamaru Usman’s] fight,” Khabib said. “I don’t know why but I really wanted him to beat that record. I wanted him to beat Anderson Silva’s record [for consecutive wins]. Perhaps it’s because I have good relations with him. I wanted him to beat that record really badly. But what happened happened. Other than that I don’t wake up for these fights. I woke up for Usman’s fight. When you want to watch it, you wake up for it.”
“Other than that, you know what fight it was? I think I woke up for one or two fights this years. Ngannou vs. Gane, I woke up for that one. There was another one … Petr Yan! I woke up for Petr Yan vs. Aljamain Sterling. I couldn’t have missed it. I was really interested in it. Yan vs. Sterling, Ngannou vs. Gane … Mateusz Gamrot vs. Arman Tsarukyan, I definitely would have woken up for it. I was fortunate enough to watch it live.”
Luckily for Khabib, they’ll be no 5am alarms for UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi as he will have a front-row seat as his protégé Islam Makhachev challenges Charles Oliveira for the 155lbs crown. A title and division he once ruled himself.
After that, the Russian has one fight in particular that he must view live…
“I’ll wake up for Adesanya vs. Pereira,” Khabib declared. “That’ll be interesting.”
Adesanya and Pereira will meet in a highly anticipated middleweight contest at UFC 281 in New York on November 12th. Also on the MSG card is Carla Esparza vs. Zhang Weili and Poirier vs. Chandler.
Do you agree with Khabib’s comments? Is MMA on a downhill slope?
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
