Khabib Nurmagomedov has taken an indirect swipe at his old rival Conor McGregor in a new interview in which he dismisses the quality of Ireland’s MMA fighters compared to his own countrymen.
“Brother, Ireland don’t have fighters, brother,” Khabib said during an interview with PFL ahead of his cousin Usman Nurmagomedov’s Bellator title defense against Irishman Paul Hughes later this month. “Let’s be honest.
“How many fighters do you know from Ireland? Paul Hughes and Conor and who else?”
“There is no fighter, brother. [If] you come to Dagestan, you can understand. You know, so many organizations, they don’t even sign Dagestan fighters because they worry [that] everybody [will] become champion.”
“Brother, Dagestan and, let’s be honest, Dagestan’s level of MMA is here. Ireland’s level is not even half of Dagestan’s level.”
To be fair, not many countries can compete with Dagestan’s impressive ability to produce top-tier MMA fighters in recent years, but of course Khabib will no doubt take satisfaction in singling out Ireland in particular due to his bitter rivalry with McGregor.
So far ‘The Notorious’ himself hasn’t responded to Khabib’s claim, and instead an unlikely source in Liverpool’s own Darren Till stepped into the fray with his take on the situation.
“I’ve always respected Khabib and his team a lot they are fantastic fighters,” TIll wrote on X. “But for him to sit there and say fighters from Ireland are low level in comparison of sizes of countries and production Ireland is actually way ahead. Ireland is so fucking small and Russia is so fucking big. Ireland has produced amazing fighters over the years. I would said just over size and production of the country Ireland wins every time and this is not me being biased because I am neither friends with khabibs side or irelands side I’m just stating my opinion.“
Unfortunately for Till, while his comments were well intentioned, they were also misinformed as Dagestan actually only has a population of just over 3 million people, while Ireland’s is over 5 million.
Meanwhile MIchael Bisping also had his say with a point that few would likely take issue with.
“If you go on the streets of Ireland, you go downtown Dublin and you’re trying to look for a fight, you’re gonna find one pretty quickly,” Bisping said. “They are certainly not a country to mock when it comes to fighting,”
