Khabib Nurmagomedov withdrew from his 3rd fight in a row earlier this week when he suffered a rib injury in training.
This comes after back to back serious knee injuries that have sidelined Nurmagomedov since his unanimous decision win over Rafael Dos Anjos back in April of 2014.
Nurmagomedov’s father and coach, Abdulmanap, took to Facebook to explain the injury.
As translated by BloodyElbow:
“This injury is a very unpleasant situation,” said the renowned Dagestani coach. “We tried to figure out how to train and avoid injuries, not to disappoint our fans. But we failed. Khabib stopped a takedown while working in sparring when he got injured. We couldn’t force everything.”
“Too much effort was spent on flights here and there, meeting youth, and we also always had many guests at home. This isn’t a proper regime for training.”
“We got the injury one day before flight to USA and 42 days before the fight. We planned to do 2 training camps – 21 days each. Khabib’s weight was 85kg what I think was good regarding the time he had before the fight. One relief for us – is that wasn’t his old injury, not his knee. A broken rib is a very common injury for wrestlers.”