Dana White ‘a little confident’ he can talk Khabib into coming out of retirement

Since he made the announcement in late October, Khabib Nurmagomedov has reaffirmed his retirement multiple times now. Dana White, however, isn’t willing to accept…

By: Milan Ordoñez | 2 years ago
Dana White ‘a little confident’ he can talk Khabib into coming out of retirement
Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

Since he made the announcement in late October, Khabib Nurmagomedov has reaffirmed his retirement multiple times now. Dana White, however, isn’t willing to accept it just yet.

The UFC president is scheduled to have a sitdown with the reigning lightweight champion “sometime soon” in Abu Dhabi. And he’d repeatedly stated, the goal is to convince the undefeated “Eagle” to make a comeback for one last time.

“I think his dad wanting him to get to 30-0 is in the back of his mind,” White told BT Sport. “And he wants to achieve that because he knew his father wanted it. But we’ll see. He and I are gonna get together next month and talk.”

White knows it would be a challenge to successfully goad Khabib into taking back his statement. But he does have that “little” confidence that he’d be able to pull it off.

“He might not. Maybe he won’t fight (again),” he said. “I don’t know the answer to that. But I’m a little confident that I can talk him into it.”

White also touched on the UFC 257 headliner between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier. A logical move to make would be to turn it into an interim title fight, but the boss man isn’t willing to oblige just yet.

“No interim title. I’ll know next month. I’ll know when Conor and Poirier are fighting whether (Khabib’s) gonna fight again.

As of the updated rankings this week, Khabib also remains to be the UFC’s top pound-for-pound fighter.

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Milan Ordoñez
Milan Ordoñez

Milan Ordoñez has been covering combat sports since 2012 and has been part of the Bloody Elbow staff since 2016. He’s also competed in amateur mixed martial arts and submission grappling tournaments.

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