UFC 257: Dana White says Khabib comeback ‘doesn’t sound positive’ after Conor McGregor loss
- UFC president reveals retired lightweight champ told him ‘be honest with yourself, I’m so many level above these guys’
- White feels McGregor rematch could draw No 1 buy rate in combat sports history – ‘a piece of him had to want to be part of a fight that big’
Dana White seems to have lost all hope of convincing Khabib Nurmagomedov to return to the Octagon one more time.
The UFC president revealed he had spoken to the retired lightweight champ after Sunday’s UFC 257 main event, where Dustin Poirier (27-6, one no contest) shocked the MMA world with a second-round TKO of Conor McGregor (22-5) on Fight Island.
“I did talk to Khabib, and he said to me, ‘Dana, be honest with yourself, I’m so many levels above these guys, I beat these guys’,” White said at the post-event press conference inside Etihad Arena.
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound very positive. But we’ll see. And what he said was, I told you guys before, he won’t hold the division up. He’s basically retired, I’m the one trying to get him to do one more.
“I’m gonna talk to Khabib and see if he wants to defend that title, and if he doesn’t, I won’t push it any more.”
White also revealed UFC 257 – featuring McGregor’s return after a year out of the cage – was set to bring in the company’s second highest pay-per-view buy rate of all time, despite technical issues marring the start of the broadcast for viewers on the west coast of the US.
“Khabib wanted to see something spectacular. He hates Conor, so I know he wanted Conor to lose,” White added. “But there has to be a little piece of him inside that … the fight with him and Conor would’ve been one of the biggest fights ever, if not the biggest.
“Our numbers were off the charts this week. I was saying Khabib-Conor could be the No 3 fight all time, period, in all combat sports. Today I felt like it could be No 1. I felt it could beat McGregor-[Floyd] Mayweather.
“A piece of him had to want to be part of a fight that big.”
