It was on an episode of The MMA Hour earlier this month, that Edson Barboza confirmed that he was offered a fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov. The lightweight contender said he had not agreed or was even offered the fight, but there was clear some things were going on due to posts on Nurmagomedov and Barboza’s social media a few days before the show. Today the rumors and talk were put to rest, as the UFC confirmed that Barboza will fight Nurmagomedov at UFC 219 on December 30th.

After many failed attempts booking a fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov with Tony Ferguson, it’s clear that both the UFC and Khabib’s team have moved on. The interesting part here is that Nurmagomedov said he’d only agree to fight Edson Barboza if the UFC booked Conor McGregor to fight Tony Ferguson. Take that with a grain of salt as the reason for this awesome UFC 219 match-up, but that will surely be a conclusion people will draw. Either way, this is an exciting fight that has a finish written all over it. The winner makes certain that the shark tank lightweight division doesn’t pass them by, the loser gets pushed downstream.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 10/27/2017.