Khabib Nurmagomedov praises Mijaín López's "impossible" feat after Cuban clinches gold at 2024 Paris Olympics
Khabib Nurmagomedov recently took to Instagram to heap praise on Mijaín López's stunning accomplishments on the world stage. While representing Cuba, López won gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics in Greco-Roman wrestling, marking his record fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal.
This distinguishes him as the first, and thus far, only athlete in modern Olympics history to capture five Olympic gold medals. Given that the sport he dominates is Greco-Roman wrestling, it has drawn the attention of many in the combat sports world, including Nurmagomedov.
A proud wrestler himself, 'The Eagle' expressed his astonishment on an Instagram story, hailing the legendary Cuban's feat an impossibility.
"Looks like impossible"
Following his latest Olympic triumph, López retired from wrestling. While Nurmagomedov never wrestled classically, 'The Eagle's' home republic of Dagestan yielded one of the greatest freestyle wrestlers of all time in Buvaisar Saitiev, who captured Olympic gold thrice.
Nurmagomedov, meanwhile, has spent his entire combat sports career competing in Combat sambo and MMA, becoming a two-time world champion in the former and a legendary UFC lightweight champion in the latter. Despite never wrestling traditionally, Nurmagomedov has a tremendous amount of respect for the sport.
On the Cuban front, López isn't the only Olympic medalist that MMA is familiar with. Yoel Romero, an Olympic silver medalist in freestyle wrestling, was once a staple of the UFC middleweight division, where his shadow loomed over the title scene for years before he left for Bellator.
Whether Nurmagomedov could have competed in wrestling at a world-class level has been an open question for years, but with his fighting days behind him, he remains content with offering his thoughts on recent developments in the combat sports world.
Khabib Nurmagomedov has faced an Olympic medalist before
In 2005, three years before his professional MMA debut, a 17-year old Khabib Nurmagomedov faced a 20-year old Magomed Ibragimov at the Russian Combat Sambo Championship. The bout ended in Ibragimov's favor, and nearly a decade later, he would go on to capture an Olympic bronze medal in freestyle wrestling.
Check out Khabib Nurmagomedov's loss to Magomed Ibragimov:
The 2016 Olympic bronze medalist remains the only person to ever defeat Nurmagomedov in any official capacity, as 'The Eagle' made his subsequent debut in MMA, where he authored an all-time great 29-0 run before his early retirement.