{"id":14203,"date":"2025-07-22T20:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/14203\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T20:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:01:09","slug":"khabib-nurmagomedov-claims-conor-mcgregor-rivalry-fueled-by-ufc-it-was-all-danas-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/14203\/","title":{"rendered":"Khabib Nurmagomedov claims Conor McGregor rivalry fueled by UFC: \u2018It was all Dana\u2019s doing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Khabib Nurmagomedov<\/a> knows all about Dana White<\/a> pulling the strings.<\/p>\n

Well before Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor<\/a> stepped into the cage at UFC 229<\/a>, the seeds were planted for an all-time great rivalry and much of that was due to McGregor\u2019s unhinged antics. Ahead of Nurmagomedov\u2019s lightweight title fight with Al Iaquinta<\/a> at UFC 223<\/a> in April 2018, McGregor invaded the backstage area of Barclays Center in Brooklyn and threw a dolly threw the window of a bus transporting Nurmagomedov.<\/p>\n

The incident made international headlines and built anticipation for their potential fight to a fever pitch. Nurmagomedov recently spoke on the Hustle Show<\/a> (Russian interview accompanied by English subtitles) about the feud, saying White was happy to encourage it:<\/p>\n

Host (Adam Zubairev): I heard [UFC executive] Hunter [Campbell] was the one who built up the hype for your fight with Conor.<\/p>\n

Nurmagomedov: Hunter might not like hearing this, but it was Dana White who built that fight up.<\/p>\n

Zubairev: What I mean is, it was all set up like that. That whole bus incident, for example, they basically opened the door for him. They gave him access everywhere.<\/p>\n

Nurmagomedov: It was all Dana\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n

Zubairev: He did it well, though. Looking back now, you get it.<\/p>\n

Nurmagomedov: I even told him he did a good job. \u2018Good job, Dana.\u2019 Not just him. Hunter alone wouldn\u2019t have been enough. They were all involved.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Barclays Center incident, Nurmagomedov and McGregor had numerous public opportunities to verbally attack each other, and the trash talk was often deeply personal.<\/p>\n

However, they didn\u2019t have a chance to go head-to-head at the final press conference<\/a> for UFC 229 because Nurmagomedov decided not to wait around for the perpetually tardy McGregor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still had weight to cut,\u201d Nurmagomedov said. \u201cEverything was scheduled to the minute. At 2:30 p.m. you\u2019re supposed to arrive at the arena. You go backstage and wait, everyone is supposed to be there by 2:30. At 3 p.m., the press conference starts. According to the schedule and the contract, it runs from 3 p.m. until 4 p.m., I think, no delays allowed. I showed up and asked if he had arrived yet. They said, \u2018No.\u2019 And someone said, \u2018He hasn\u2019t even left yet.\u2019 He\u2019s probably going to be late. And I\u2019m like, \u2018Aha.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m sitting there in the locker room,\u201d Nurmagomedov continued. \u201cI didn\u2019t say anything to anyone and I think to myself when there\u2019s five minutes left, I\u2019ll say I\u2019m not doing it. Five minutes left. I said, \u2018I\u2019ll sit for 10 to 15 minutes. If he doesn\u2019t show up, I\u2019m out.\u2019 I said, \u2018Get the cars ready.\u2019 There were a lot of fans outside. They started saying this and that and I told the producer, \u2018I\u2019m staying until 3:15, then I\u2019m leaving. I won\u2019t be there. You won\u2019t be able to hold me.\u2019 Then he went to Dana and told him. Dana came up to me, I said, \u2018I\u2019m not staying. I\u2019ll stay for 15 minutes. I\u2019m leaving.\u2019 \u2018Alright,\u2019 he said, \u2018OK, kid.\u2019 Yeah, that\u2019s Dana\u2019s style. So I sat there, and he didn\u2019t show up. I left. Turns out he arrived like half an hour later. So I left. Why would I stay for that? I still had to cut weight on Thursday, why sit and listen to him?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nurmagomedov went on to successfully defend his lightweight title, defeating McGregor by fourth-round submission in a bout Nurmagomedov largely dominated with his wrestling. McGregor has called for a rematch in the years following, but Nurmagomedov instead went on to record two more championship bout wins over Dustin Poirier<\/a> and Justin Gaethje<\/a> before announcing his retirement immediately after the Gaethje fight in 2020. He finished with a professional record of 29-0.<\/p>\n

The UFC has also moved on past the Nurmagomedov-McGregor feud, though there has recently been growing fan discontent about the lack of compelling characters and storylines despite business continuing to boom for the promotion.<\/p>\n

Nurmagomedov believes there are still great rivalries, including his close friend and teammate Islam Makhachev<\/a> possibly facing Ilia Topuria<\/a> in the future, but acknowledges that nothing has come close to the excitement surrounding his UFC 229 fight with McGregor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interest, the clash of styles, two champion fighters, sure that can happen,\u201d Nurmagomedov said. \u201cBut not a rivalry like ours. And Islam too… Islam is a really good guy. Not like me. Islam is a good guy. And Topuria\u2014but all this hype, that\u2019s coming from him. I just don\u2019t see it. I don\u2019t know. … Of course, UFC will push it. One hundred percent. And they\u2019ll always do that, it\u2019s a promotion after all, they promote. And the fighters, undoubtedly they\u2019re two of the best fighters right now, definitely among the top 5, statistically and in my opinion. But I don\u2019t see that level of anticipation that breaks beyond the sport itself. In terms of sport, yes, it\u2019s a huge matchup. The whole thing with Conor was like … It all happened very naturally. That\u2019s what made the fight blow up. Sometimes it\u2019s carefully constructed and it works. And sometimes it just happens on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khabib Nurmagomedov knows all about Dana White pulling the strings. Well before Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor stepped into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[3265,64,63,7504,5794,14851,15617,15618,786,585,15616,1467,15614,1347,14852,785,15615,15126,1628,85,787,1396,15340],"class_list":["post-14203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-all","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-by","tag-claims","tag-conor","tag-dana","tag-doing","tag-fighting","tag-front-page","tag-fueled","tag-it","tag-khabib","tag-latest-news","tag-mcgregor","tag-mma","tag-nurmagomedov","tag-rivalry","tag-s","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news","tag-was"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}