Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov weren’t always bitter enemies.
It wasn’t that long ago when Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov were posing for photos.
With big, wide smiles washed across their faces, the mutual respect was palpable. Both had a chip on their shoulders, both were rising stars with eyes only for taking over their respective divisions.
A picture may tell a thousand words, but generally speaking, words make for clearer communication.
You don’t need to be a master communicator to work out the tone of this Twitter exchange from 2014. You’d be tempted to say in your best Todd Rivers impression that they were… buddies.
https://twitter.com/TheNotoriousMMA/status/509443141489807360
@TeamKhabib @Dethrone_Dan @ufc Lets do it brother!! I fly out to Vegas tomorrow!! Hit me up and we can train 🙂
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) September 9, 2014
Beef
What started out as a respectful relationship veered off into a very dark place. The wheels of any potential friendship fell off well before that flying dolly opened up Michael Chiesa’s forehead.
The first time they properly clashed at a UFC event was just before McGregor became a double UFC champion. Funnily enough, the Dagestani wasn’t the only UFC fighter he had a moment with either. At the UFC 205 weigh-ins, McGregor had a heated interaction with welterweight king Tyron Woodley.
Joey Diaz would go on to describe this meeting as ‘ THE SEED MOTHERFUCKERS!”
https://twitter.com/MMAMadDale/status/797094517618966528
Shortly after this incident, McGregor met Khabib. One the same card in which ‘the Notorious’ beat Eddie Alvarez, Nurmagmodeov dominated and finished Michael Johnson. You know, the one where people think Nurmagomedov got ‘rocked’.
Nurmagomedov’s manager, Ali Abdel-Aziz, explained what went down on the MMA Hour.
“We were walking at the official (UFC 205) weigh-in – it was me, Khabib, Conor and his team. Conor was beefing with Woodley and after that we walked by and Conor starts saying, ‘What! What!’ and Khabib ran straight to him and said, ‘I’ll smash your face, you chicken.’ I’ll be honest with you, that’s the truth.”
As you can see from the footage below, Ali could be heard saying, ‘Fuck this guy. Fuck this motherfucker’. That being said, he was a lot calmer than he sounded in the bus footage at UFC 223.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZYwU4bJP9w
After Nurmagomedov and his team left, McGregor looked fired up. He paced around the room looking in their direction.
John Kavanagh just stood there in silence with his arms folded. This wasn’t the SBG head coach’s first rodeo. It certainly wasn’t his last either. He was well used to it by then!
