Chael Sonnen is a former UFC middleweight title challenger. Photo: YouTube Reproduction
Chael Sonnen is not confident in the reasons that led Khabib Nurmagomedov hanging up his gloves. The Russian, who made the decision to stop fighting shortly after lose father, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, claimed that he would not be able to continue his career without his mentor. Although the UFC tried to bring him back several times without success, Sonnen believes that the organization used the wrong strategies to convince him.
In an interview with MMA Junkie, the former fighter and now commentator said he believes Khabib did not retire because of the promise he made or because of a lack of interest in a rematch against Conor McGregor, but because I no longer wanted to go through the exhausting process of cutting weight to fight at lightweight.
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According to Sonnen, the UFC tried to convince him to continue with increasingly larger financial offers, but the real problem was the difficulty in making weight. For Sonnen's former rival, Anderson Silva, if the organization had allowed the Russian to fight at welterweight (up to 77 kg), he could have had at least one more fight before retiring.
“Khabib didn’t retire because he didn’t want to fight Conor a second time. The UFC showed him the wrong numbers. Every time they had a meeting, they showed him more zeros and more dollar signs. That was the wrong number. If they had made the fight at 77 pounds, they would have gotten another fight with Khabib.”, he explained. Chael Sonnen
Khabib Nurmagomedov He hung up his gloves with a perfect record of 29 fights and 29 wins, 13 of which were in the UFC. He won the lightweight belt by defeating To the fifth at UFC 223, in April 2018. He defended his reign on three occasions against; Conor McGregor Dustin poirier and, in his last fight, against Justin gaethje.
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