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UFC: Khabib won’t do The Ultimate Fighter with Conor McGregor ‘even if they pay me US$5 billion’

  • Lightweight champ shuts down any notion of coaching rival teams with ‘The Notorious’ on rebooted reality TV show
  • ‘This is good attention, I don’t want to give him this,’ says Russia’s Nurmagomedov

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Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor face off during a press conference for UFC 229 at Radio City Music Hall. Photo: Noah K Murray/USA TODAY Sports

It was already looking pretty unlikely that Khabib Nurmagomedov would agree to coach rival teams with Conor McGregor on The Ultimate Fighter, but he has now made his position crystal clear.

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The 32-year-old UFC lightweight champ’s (28-0) manager Ali Abdelaziz revealed last month in an interview with TMZ Sports that his client had been offered a deal to star alongside “The Notorious” (22-4) on the rebooted reality television show later this year.

The season would have culminated in a rematch between the two, who hold the record for pay-per-view buys (2.4 million) in the promotion after their fractious UFC 229 headliner in October 2018.

“The Eagle” submitted the Irishman in the fourth round of a heated contest which spilled outside the Octagon after months of bad blood in the build-up, brought to a boil when McGregor threw a dolly at the window of a bus containing UFC fighters including Nurmagomedov in Brooklyn, New York.

But Dana White said McGregor “blew it” by leaking private messages between himself and the UFC president, which the Russian was supposedly upset by.
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