Kevin Lee has no sympathy for Khabib Nurmagomedov’s botched weight cut.
Mixed martial arts (MMA) enthusiasts were anticipating an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) interim lightweight title bout between Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson at UFC 209. The fight was canned when “The Eagle” was removed from the event due to falling ill. The illness was due to a bad weight cut.
Many fans, analysts and fighters were disappointed with the cancellation of the bout. In a recent interview with Bloody Elbow, Kevin Lee expressed his dismay with Nurmagomedov for not showing up to fight:
“It’s disrespectful. Maybe he did have something going on. Maybe he did have something wrong, but when it’s this big, when it gets to that level, yeah I can understand self preservation. You don’t want that loss, but be a man, you know? You got to go out there. Okay, if you don’t win, you don’t win. You dust yourself off, you get better, you learn from it. He’s just trying to hold on to that ‘0.’ That’s the only way I see it. Maybe his weight cut wasn’t the greatest; so the f–k what? I have bad weight cuts all the time; so the f—k what? You get up. You fight. I also don’t have thousands of Russians flying halfway across the world to see me fight, and I still show up. That’s just being a man, and that’s being a man of your word. If you sign the contract, if you say you’re going to show up, to me, you show up. You don’t pull out the day before. That’s for damn sure.”
“The Motown Phenom” will do battle with Francisco Trinaldo this Saturday night (March 11) inside the Centro de Formacao Olimpica do Nordeste in Fortaleza, Brazil. The main card airs live on FOX Sports 1 at 10 p.m. ET.
