Khabib Submits McGregor in 4

Khabib Submits McGregor

At UFC 229 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas Khabib Nurmagomedov proved he was the real deal as he mauled Conor McGregor for the majority of the fight and got his signature win via a 4th round submission to regain his UFC lightweight title.

The fight went pretty much the way I thought it would. Khabib got repeated takedowns and eventually sucked all the fight out of McGregor. Only in the 3rd did McGregor look like doing something, but probably down to the layoff and fatigue the timing didn’t seem there. When he did land Khabib didn’t look unduly troubled, and as I said pre-fight the power just isn’t the same at lightweight.

McGregor looked slow, for him ponderous even at times. At the start, the Irishman tried walking Khabib down and inside a minute he was on his back, and while he avoided any real damage the pattern of the fight was set.

In the 2nd round, McGregor marched forward again and he found himself dropped by a big right hand and soon after he was on his back with his nemesis right on top of him.

But this time McGregor took some real damage and Herb Dean could well have stopped it there and then. But to give McGregor credit he stuck in there and somehow managed to survive.

McGregor had a decent 3rd as Khabib slowed and a sensational turnaround briefly threatened. But an early takedown in the 4th stopped any momentum McGregor had, and eventually Khabib got his opponent’s back and secured the neck crank and McGregor soon tapped.

But just as Khabib should have been celebrating his victory and a feud being settled, he ruined his moment by jumping the cage and attacking Dillon Danis one of McGregor’s teammates and the WWE style melee followed.

One of Khabib’s team then jumped into the cage and attacked McGregor who thankfully didn’t react. The whole build-up had an unsavoury taste, starting from the bus attack and finishing with the disgusting post-fight antics, which hopefully will not be part of another story.

The UFC has dug itself one big hole here when you don’t punish McGregor for the bus attack how do you now punish Khabib. On both counts suspensions at the very least, were and are warranted.

Both without any shadow of a doubt have done enough to be kicked out of the UFC, but different fighters depending on what you draw at the box office seemingly have different rules.

Khabib proved by some distance he was the better man inside the cage. McGregor, while he showed skills defending on the ground, got comprehensively beat, and the McGregor era is coming to an end.

Very few fighters can return from so long away, and juggle so many outside interests, McGregor found out tonight he is one of the many.

McGregor is still McGregor and will have options going forward, but the manner of the defeat leaves him with the very real possibility his days in the sun are very nearly over.