Now that Khabib Nurmagomedov owns the UFC’s lightweight title, a meeting with Conor McGregor seems inevitable, and SBG coach Owen Roddy recently spoke about how he thinks the fight would go down
Long before Conor McGregor’s ill-advised outburst at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center during UFC 223’s fight week turned a potential bout between the Irishman and lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov into the biggest fight that the UFC could make, both sides were taking sporadic shots at each other through the wonders of social media.
The verbal sparring between the two sides continues to throw fuel on what was already a heated rivalry, and various teammates and coaches from the opposing camps have also gotten in on the ongoing war of words. Most recently, SBG striking coach Owen Roddy took aim at Nurmagomedov while praising McGregor’s knockout power during an interview with the BBC MMA Show.
“At the end of the day, Khabib hasn’t finished many fights lately,” said Roddy. “Now he always says he [Nurmagomeov] does that on purpose, but I don’t think so. If you’re going to go in and finish somebody, you go in and finish somebody. He [Nurmagomedov] says, ‘I like punish people for five rounds’, I always say, if you’re going to give Conor McGregor five attempts to land a shot on you.
“So even if he went in and didn’t land this first round, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, he still has five attempts to land one shot. I’ve seen Conor McGregor go in and land within the first thirty seconds of the first round.”
Earlier this month, Nurmagomedov claimed the UFC’s briefly vacant lightweight title with a unanimous decision win over Al Iaquinta in the main event of UFC 223 after his long-awaited bout with Tony Ferguson once again fell through and time constraints prevented featherweight champion Max Holloway from safely stepping in as a late replacement.
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McGregor’s dolly-throwing outburst during an attempted attack on Nurmagomedov at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center has landed the Irishman in some severely hot water that has the potential to extend his Octagon absence. As a result of his actions, McGregor, and one of his friends who was involved in the incident, were given a June court date. But as of now, the UFC hasn’t punished McGregor and it’s unclear if UFC president Dana White intends to do so.