UFC star Conor McGregor praised with ‘toughest fight’ compliment by former rival

Regarded as one of the most popular and critically acclaimed fights in UFC’s modern era, Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov are often praised for taking UFC to an even bigger global stage.

McGregor’s trash talking, their public duels, and Nurmagomedov’s win in the end became some of the biggest talking points from the match. On Oct. 6, 2018, at UFC 229, Nurmagomedov settled his score with McGregor by brutally dominating and defeating him.

Now, recently, in an interview with Lex Fridman, Nurmagomedov revealed that McGregor was his most difficult fight and challenge from a mental standpoint. “One hundred percent,” Nurmagomedov said. “Because fighting’s all psychology, you know? It’s a mental game. Mentally speaking, that was my toughest fight. At that point, yeah. But a tougher fight came later,” he shared.

“The way he talked, what he stirred up, the lines he crossed, touching on family, religion, and then somehow on one side you had Conor, this really interesting champion who knew how to hype himself up,” Nurmagomedov said. “On the other side, you had this undefeated somebody from nowhere, from the mountains. You know it is,” Nurmagomedov shared while explaining what made his fight against McGregor tough.

“It all somehow, all of it just kind of happened naturally. And it wasn’t staged. It was real. We had a real rivalry, unlike the way a lot of people now just hype up interest in a fight. But people feel that energy. It doesn’t go anywhere. People can tell what’s real and what’s fake and because of that we went beyond our own sport. That’s what made this fight so massive.” (via SB Nation MMAFighting)

While the Russian believes fighting McGregor was tough, he also admitted to facing someone even tougher later. According to Khabib, the tougher fight was his retirement bout against Justin Gaethje in 2020.

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