The most anticipated fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship history lost one of its main stars.
After days of speculations, it is now confirmed that Khabib Nurmagomedov will not be defending his lightweight title against Tony Ferguson in the main event of UFC 249 fight card on April 18.
Despite the possibilities of travelling to the United States via private jet, the undefeated Russian champion has decided to stay in Russia as the country shuts down its borders to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
It was supposed to be Khabib’s third straight title-retention attempt, following his back-to-back submission wins against Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier respectively.
Over the weekend, ESPN’s Ariel Helwani reported that the UFC has reached a travel deal with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, making Khabib available for the UFC 249 headlining bout.
“#BREAKING: Dana White and Vladimir Putin have reached an agreement on travel arrangements for UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov to come to the United States. He will fight Tony Ferguson. It’s happening folks. #UFC249 will go on as scheduled April 18,” the MMA journalist wrote on Twitter.
But UFC president Dana White were quick to dismissed the report, saying the MMA show will go ahead without Nurmagomedov.
“Absolutely NOT true!!! The card is happening but Khabib Nurmagomedov is out. I will announce the entire card tomorrow.”
With the recent issues surrounding the fight card, the outspoken head honcho assured fans that the promotion will do everything in its power to make UFC 249 happen.
“The challenges are that every time I get something figured out, I wake up the next day and the world has completely changed again,” White said at the MMA Fighting’s Heavyweight podcast.
“Everything that I work hard on the day before, me and my crew, has now fallen apart. It literally just happened to us again today.”
“I woke up today and Khabib Nurmagomedov is in Russia and they just shut down all travel in and out of Russia.”
“I woke up this morning and the whole world (expletive) changed again.”
“So back to the drawing board and we’re figuring this out right now as we’re speaking right now, I have people working on this thing as we speak.”
“Listen, I am absolutely (expletive) relentless and I said that this fight is going to go on and it will.”
(Featured Image Source: Instagram/ Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson)