UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov has branded Conor McGregor’s boxing match with Floyd Mayweather a ‘fake fight’.
MMA mogul McGregor entered the boxing world in August 2017 for a multi-million-pound showdown with the former five-weight world champion, which was aptly dubbed ‘The Money Fight’.
The UFC’s poster boy suffered a tenth-round TKO defeat to Money who many, including Nurmagomedov, believes carried The Notorious.
During an appearance on The Nelk Boys’ Full Send podcast, he said: “It was just like [a] sparring fight.
“And for me, it was not real fight because this guy [is] not a real boxer, and Mayweather what he did, for me it was more like a fake fight.
“This is just my opinion. Maybe, maybe not… Then, what was between us, it was real.
“Everything that happened before the fight, inside the fight, after the fight.”
Three months after his retirement fight, Mayweather claimed he took it easy on McGregor to make the fight ‘look good’ for fans.
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The 44-year-old star told Fight Hype: “Everybody tried to protest the Mayweather-McGregor fight, right?
“But I’m gonna tell y’all the truth, I’m gonna tell y’all the truth: You know I carried McGregor. You know I made it look good for y’all.”
Nurmagomedov, who retired from MMA in October 2020, was offered a staggering NINE-FIGURE payday to share the ring with Hall-of-Famer Mayweather.
But the Dagestani wrecking machine rejected the mega-money offer, with his manager Ali Abdelaziz telling TMZ: “Listen, we got offered $100million to fight Floyd Mayweather.
“Dana White was on board, everybody was on board. But, you know, Khabib is an MMA fighter.
“If Floyd wanted to come to fight, get his little ass whooped, no problem.”
Nurmagomedov confirmed the offers ahead of his retirement fight, saying: “Always, like every month people call me and they ask me, ‘You going to fight with Floyd Mayweather if we pay you $100m?’
“It’s like crazy. I want to be focused on Justin Gaethje, please.
“Every month, some people from Saudi Arabia, from Emirates, from a lot of countries, like always try to make contract with me.”
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Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk