Former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has explained why he believes he was the pound-for-pound king ahead of Jon Jones.

While he may have retired almost a year ago now, Khabib is still the name on everyone’s lips when it comes to the lightweight division. The former king at 155 pounds was able to dispatch everyone who came before him and he did so in the kind of dominant fashion that has left many believing he’s the best lightweight of all time.

During a recent interview with ESPN, Khabib went a step further by suggesting that, at the time, he was the pound-for-pound number one ahead of light heavyweight sensation Jon Jones.

“For me it’s like, 30-0, 29-0, or 15-0, it’s nothing. I fight and I showed the world,” Nurmagomedov said. “And from nowhere, I came here and took all of everything. At that moment, I was the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter. This, nobody can say nothing. It was not Kamaru Usman, it was not Jon Jones, who fights very close fights with all these light heavyweights like Ovince Saint Preux, like Thiago (Santos), Anthony Smith, Dominick Reyes. These guys, [Jones] showed versus them very bad performances, and everything that happened with doping. But what about me? I was mauling everybody.”

Quotes courtesy of MMA Fighting

Do you believe Khabib Nurmagomedov was the P4P best in his prime? Let us know in the comments, BJPENN Nation!