On Tuesday, UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov reflected on the night he defeated his arch rival, Conor McGregor, in the Octagon.
Nurmagomedov defeated McGregor via fourth-round submission on October 6, 2018, in the main event of the blockbuster UFC 229 pay-per-view. Tuesday was the two-year anniversary of that victory.
Given the amount of trash talk that preceded that fight, Nurmagomedov unsurprisingly still enjoys relishing his triumph over his Irish rival. He did just that on Instagram.
“It’s only business for them, but not for me,” Nurmagomedov wrote in the caption for his post, referencing McGregor infamously telling him ‘it’s only business’ in the heat of the fight.
“It was the night when the masks flew away and few guys from mountains wrote history in downtown Vegas with the blood of rivals,” Nurmagomedov added.
Khabib Nurmagomedov is currently 28-0 as a professional mixed martial artist. He captured the UFC lightweight title in early 2018, when he defeated last-minute replacement opponent Al Iaquinta in a fight for the vacant throne. Since then, he’s defended the title twice: first with his submission of McGregor in 2018, which went down as the biggest fight in UFC history, then with a submission of Dustin Poirier in September, 2019. While Nurmagomedov has not fought since he defeated Poirier in 2019, he is set to return to the cage in a few weeks’ time, as he’s scheduled for a title defense opposite interim lightweight champion Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 on October 24.
Conor McGregor, meanwhile, has fought just once since his loss to Nurmagomedov, knocking out Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in less than a minute earlier this year. The Irish star has made no secret of the fact that he hopes to earn a rematch with the lightweight champion.