Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson have already been scheduled to fight 4 times in the past, with the fight falling through each time. Hopefully this will finally change at UFC 249 this April.
After 4 previous fight cancellations due to different reasons, Nurmagomedov and Ferguson are scheduled to fight again, and the entire MMA community is praying that the 5th time’s the charm. With plenty of superstition surrounding this fight, Khabib’s head coach Javier Mendez, believes the stars have aligned for the fight to happen this time around.
Javier Mendez believes that, with each previous failed attempt to make Nurmagomedov vs. Ferguson fight happen, interest has slowly peaked, and at UFC 249, the fight will be much bigger than it would been had the fight occurred in the past.
“It’s like things are meant to be this way,” Mendez told MMA Junkie recently. “They’re meant to be and that didn’t happen, but now it’s bigger than it’s ever been. So maybe it was meant to be that they were going to fight in a much bigger platform. And here we are. It’s the biggest platform for both of them, fighting each other wasn’t meant (then),”
Mendez also added: “This is the biggest platform ever for both of them to fight each other. And maybe it was meant to be this way, maybe it was meant to be bigger than the what it was back then. And now we are at the huge platform for both of them, So I’d just rather look on the positive side of it, you know.”
Javier Mendez thinks that this matchup taking some time to put together was a blessing in disguise. He believes Nurmagomedov and Ferguson have both improved since the UFC first tried to book the fight between them.
“It’s changed some because Tony has gotten better, Khabib has gotten better,” Mendez explained. “So it’s not the same. Can not be the same. Look how good Tony has looked. You can’t say it’s the same, no way. And look how good Khabib has looked. We have to look at it like it’s a brand new fight. You can’t look at it as same old, same old. We know what we’re looking at. Different things have popped up since then for both of them.”
This article first appeared on CLOSEDGUARDMEDIA.com on 19th February, 2020.
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