A documentary about UFC fighter Conor McGregor has been released on Netflix called ‘McGregor Forever‘. It has been revealed in the first episode that McGregor’s coach believed he deserved to lose the fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov. McGregor’s coach at the time, Colin Byrne, said there was nothing nice about the whole McGregor-Khabib rivalry. It was “all hate.”
While visuals of McGregor and his family were being shown post his fight, Byrne’s comments were played simultaneously. Byrne said, “The Khabib fight was a kick in the hole. And he deserved it. There’s nothing nice about any of that. All that anger, and the press conference, the incident after the fight, there’s no winners in any of that, it’s just all hate. It brought out the worst in both of them, as humans, you know?
“And it takes away from what it’s meant to be. But at this stage, it’s not really about winning or losing anymore. The fighting is a really small part of it. It’s really something we do for 10 minutes. It is the rest of the months, weeks, years that- it’s not really about fighting. It’s about what he can do as a force in the world. He’s got a platform to do great or do bad.”
With CONOR McGREGOR after his unbelievable victory in UFC 178. Опасный пацан. http://t.co/Fu4Qho7t6x pic.twitter.com/9H2Op52qFK
— khabib nurmagomedov (@TeamKhabib) September 28, 2014
McGregor and Khabib were almost teammates at one point in 2014. However, their lives took a terrible turn and they went on to become each other’s biggest rival. The worst part about it all is that their rivalry was not limited to the Octagon.
Why do Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov hate each other?
The rivalry between McGregor and Khabib can be traced back to November 2016. Khabib was originally offered a title fight at UFC 205, however, the plan was changed and the title shot was given to McGregor. The Irishman won the title on the night as the Russian won his fight against Michael Johnson at the same event. Khabib and Mcgregor had a run-in backstage at the weigh-ins.
In his post-fight interview, Khabib said: “I want to stay humble but I have to talk. I understand how crazy powerful the UFC PR machine is. At the start of the year, your guy [McGregor] tapped like a chicken [to Nate Diaz], now he has a title shot.”
The feud took a new turn when Khabib cornered and allegedly slapped Artem Lobov, who was then a good friend of the Irishman. This was apparently for the comments Lobov made during the UFC 223 fight week.
Conor McGregor and his crew go BERSERK in crazy bus attack! #TMZ #TMZSports pic.twitter.com/FGsTA4f0Ql
— TMZ (@TMZ) April 5, 2018
McGregor flew to New York to confront the Russian at the UFC 223 media day. However, he did not get his confrontation. This led to one of the worst moments of the rivalry – McGregor threw a dolly through the window of a UFC bus. It injured two of the fighters on board and led to a court case against him.
This finally led to their Octagon meeting in October 2018. McGregor submitted to Khabib in the fourth round. However, it was nowhere near over at the time. Khabib attacked McGregor’s training partner, Dillon Danis, and two members of Khabib’s team entered the cage to attack McGregor. Thankfully, no one was injured in these attacks.
Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor … and then jumped out of the Octagon to fight some more. pic.twitter.com/jeuSjr6Fcu
— ESPN (@espn) October 7, 2018
Since then, verbal fights between the pair have been normal. McGregor even insulted Khabib’s father after his death in a now-deleted tweet.
