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Conor McGregor, left, and Khabib Nurmagomedov trade blows during UFC 229. (Stephen R. Sylvanie/USA Today Sports)
Des Bieler
Sports reporter covering national topics, as well as supporting coverage of D.C.-area teams
It’s just possible that Ali Abdelaziz still hasn’t quite gotten over being called a “terrorist rat” by Conor McGregor. Or perhaps Khabib Nurmagomedov’s manager simply wanted to set the record straight, in absolutely no uncertain terms.
In any event, Abdelaziz posted a scathing rebuttal Tuesday to a lengthy analysis offered by McGregor of his loss earlier in the month to Nurmagomedov for the UFC’s lightweight crown, when he tapped out in the fourth round. Telling McGregor, “Go open a liquor store,” Abdelaziz called him a “weak soul” who got dominated during the fight, gave up too easily and should “focus on selling alcohol.”
During the run-up to the fight, McGregor had frequently promoted his new line of Irish whiskey, and he used it as a prop for one of his many taunts of Nurmagomedov, a devout Sunni Muslim. After getting the win — and sparking a melee at Las Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena by leaping out of the Octagon to confront one of his opponent’s cornermen — the undefeated Russian complained bitterly that more attention had not been paid to McGregor “insulting my homeland, religion, nation, family.”
On Tuesday, Abdelaziz made it clear that he did not want to hear anything more from McGregor, using an abbreviation to tell the Irishman to “shut the [expletive] up and move on.” Abdelaziz was responding to an Instagram post in which McGregor went round-by-round through the fight, claiming that while he was “beaten fair and square,” he also made several mistakes that handed the win to Nurmagomedov.
McGregor said that Nurmagomedov won the first round “from a sport standpoint” by gaining and holding “top position,” but he added, “From a fight standpoint the first round is mine.” Of a punch that staggered McGregor in the second round, he said his opponent was “blessed with a right hand that changed the course of the round,” a shot that “never gets close” if he had shown more “respect” to Nurmagomedov’s striking skills from a standing position.
McGregor said that by “walking him down” and being “willing to engage” in the third round, he won that frame, but his “recovery was not where it could have been” in the fourth. “I made a critical error of abandoning my over hook at this crucial time, exposing the back,” he wrote, “and I end up beaten fair and square.”
Abdelaziz didn’t quite recall the fight the same way. Saying that McGregor “and his sorry a– team” were “already making some stupid a– excuses,” the Egypt-born manager, whose company has dozens of MMA fighters as clients, said Nurmagomedov made his foe look like “a little child” who got “smashed in front of [his] whole family and crew” in the first two rounds.
As for the third, Abdelaziz said that Nurmagomedov “stood the whole round with you to make a point,” and he made a reference to McGregor’s reported “It’s only business” comment during that round. The manager mocked McGregor for not trying to fend off Nurmagomedov’s “neck crank that wasn’t even a choke” in the fourth, saying the only time McGregor used his hands was to tap out.
Whereas McGregor said in his post that, if an immediate rematch was not in the cards, he would be content to “face the next in line,” Abdelaziz told him flatly, “Go fight somebody else because your a– is not getting a rematch.”
Of course, before either fighter takes on anyone, each has to have a temporary suspension imposed by the Nevada Athletic Commission not be extended indefinitely, when agency members meet on Wednesday. They have been withholding Nurmagomedov’s $2 million purse while they investigate the post-fight fracas, and although McGregor got paid his $3 million purse, he could face a hefty fine.
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