{"id":582349,"date":"2026-04-03T06:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/582349\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T06:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:50:14","slug":"kamaru-usman-defends-khabib-nurmagomedovs-harsh-female-fighters-are-weak-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/582349\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamaru Usman defends Khabib Nurmagomedov&#8217;s harsh &#8216;female fighters are weak&#8217; remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman came to longtime friend Khabib Nurmagomedov\u2019s defense after a recent controversy.<\/p>\n<p>UFC Hall of Famer Khabib Nurmagomedov retired at the top of his game in 2020, but remains one of the biggest presences in Mixed Martial Arts six years after hanging up the gloves.<\/p>\n<p>Nurmagomedov, who retired after a win over Justin Gaethje at UFC 254, transitioned seemlessly from fighter to coach. He\u2019s mentored the likes of Islam Makhachev, his cousin Umar Nurmagomedov, and others in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>While Nurmagomedov remains a global superstar, some of his recent remarks got him in hot water with some MMA fans. During a recent Q&amp;A panel, Nurmagomedov made some controversial comments about female fighters, calling them \u2018weak\u2019 and that \u2018fighting is for men\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ufc\/valentina-shevchenko-scolds-khabib-nurmagomedov-over-wmma-comments-there-is-only-the-art-itself\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Several top female stars<\/a>, such as Julianna Pena and Valentina Shevchenko, scorched Nurmagomedov in response. But one of Nurmagomedov\u2019s longtime friends came to his defense.<\/p>\n<p>Kamaru Usman: Khabib \u2018taken out of context\u2019 with women\u2019s MMA stance<\/p>\n<p>In a recent episode of the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/o-X6OA2gdso?si=6-NwebuzilVVGX9-\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Pound 4 Pound<\/a> podcast, Usman defended Nurmagomedov after Valentina Shevchenko and others slammed his comments about women\u2019s MMA.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI completely understand where he\u2019s coming from, because I came from a different culture [too]. It\u2019s a cultural thing,\u201d Usman said of Nurmagomedov\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis has nothing to do with what society or the American public is taking it as. Khabib didn\u2019t mean that women can\u2019t do anything, or that they\u2019re weaklings. He didn\u2019t mean that. We know that fighting is a rough sport, rough and tough sport, very violent. Men war, we know that, everybody knows that. This was the whole premise of why you draft the men to war back in the day, that\u2019s why you leave that to men\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s not saying that women can\u2019t do anything \u2013 but, it\u2019s just taken out of context. It\u2019s a violent thing that men do, and that\u2019s why you leave that to violent men sometimes,\u201d Usman continued. \u201cI get what Valentina [Shevchenko] is saying as well, but no one said that\u2026of course, Antonina [Shevchenko] being a pilot now, that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re weaker. Of course, women should know how to defend themselves!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Do you agree with Khabib Nurmagomedov\u2019s comments about female MMA fighters? Let us know in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman came to longtime friend Khabib Nurmagomedov\u2019s defense after a recent controversy. UFC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,61175,15058,785,85,787],"class_list":{"0":"post-582349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-kamaru-usman","12":"tag-khabib-nurmagomedov","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582349","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=582349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}