Khabib Nurmagomedov’s coach is sticking up for his fighter.
Next Saturday night (Dec. 30), Nurmagomedov will return to action to meet Edson Barboza on the UFC 219 card. “The Eagle” was supposed to meet Tony Ferguson for the interim UFC lightweight title back in March, but Nurmagomedov was rushed to the hospital due to weight cutting issues and the bout was canceled.
“The Eagle’s” coach Javier Mendez recently appeared on Submission Radio and vented on his fighter’s critics (via MMAFighting.com):
“You know, the last time, people were making too much of his weight cut, talking about it was disastrous, he wasn’t gonna make weight, just because his opponent says he wasn’t gonna make weight and he made fun of it. He was on schedule to make weight, his body just failed on him,” Mendez said. “It’s like, how many times do you see a fighter get ready for a fight and all of a sudden kidney stones or something happens to him? Look, it does have a lot to do with losing weight that causes these problems, but it wasn’t that he wasn’t gonna make weight, he was gonna make weight, he wasn’t over anything, he was just like where he normally is. And just the thing with Khabib is, he doesn’t like to say anything about it, and he still won’t say anything about it.”
