"That wasn't the exact sum" - Khabib Nurmagomedov opens up on turning down $100 million for a Floyd Mayweather fight
Khabib Nurmagomedov addressed Ali Abdelaziz's recent claims about the lucrative offer 'The Eagle' received for boxing Floyd Mayweather.
Nurmagomedov recently appeared in an interview with RT Sport. He confirmed that there was indeed talk of a fight with Floyd Mayweather. However, 'The Eagle' said that the exact sum he was offered for the fight was not $100 million, but it was somewhere around it. Khabib Nurmagomedov was asked whether he was enticed to accept such an enormous amount of money. The former UFC lightweight champion responded by saying:
"The enticement is always there. There were such discussions with Saudi Arabia. They wanted me to fight there. I don't know about $100 million. That was not the exact amount, but [it was] around that."
Khabib Nurmagomedov last fought at UFC 254 in October 2020. Before that fight, 'The Eagle' was keen on the challenge of a fight with Floyd Mayweather. However, all of that changed after Khabib Nurmagomedov's fight with Justin Gaethje.
After successfully defending the lightweight strap against Justin Gaethje at UFC 254, Khabib Nurmagomedov broke down, letting go of all the emotions he held on to since his father's passing. Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov was Khabib's coach right from the beginning and raised the boy at home and in the gym. In light of the same, Khabib announced that he would no longer continue in the UFC without his father by his side.
Why did Khabib Nurmagomedov turn down the offer to fight Floyd Mayweather?
The offer Khabib Nurmagomedov received to fight Floyd Mayweather, as he accepted, was quite enticing. Nurmagomedov had even said after retirement that he would be open to fighting again if something challenging enough appealed to him.
Why did he refuse to fight Floyd Mayweather, then? His manager, Ali Abdelaziz, revealed the answer to that question in a conversation with Mike Tyson on an episode of 'Hotboxin' with Mike Tyson'. Abdelaziz said:
“Khabib got offered $100 million after he was retired to fight Floyd Mayweather. $100 million. You can ask Floyd, you can ask everybody, and Khabib said ‘no, I’m retired, I told my mother I’m retired, I’m gonna keep my word to my mother. If my mother told me to fight again maybe I will but right now, she told me not to fight’. He comes from a Muslim culture, we respect our mothers very dearly, we can’t go to heaven without our mother’s permission.”
Do you think we will ever see Khabib Nurmagomedov fight again, inside the ring or the octagon? Predict the future in the comments!
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