Khabib Nurmagomedov's disrespectful dig at Irish fighters riles up PFL stars ahead of Dubai fights

01/25/2025 12:56 PM

Khabib Nurmagmedov managed to enrage more than just the Irish public with his comments about the nation’s standard of fighters.

The legendary undefeated UFC lightweight champion is set to corner his cousin Usman Nurmagomedov at the Coca-Cola Arena tonight in his latest Bellator title defence. The bout is being heavily promoted on being ‘Dagestan vs Ireland 2’, harkening back to Khabib’s legendary 2018 fight with Conor McGregor.

And in the lead-up to proceedings, the iconic former champion didn’t mince his words when comparing the two nations. He claimed that there were no fighters from the nation barring McGregor and Hughes, dismissing an entire undercard for tonight’s event.

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Khabib Nurmagomedov rubbishes Ireland’s fighting talent

In a video promoting tonight’s event in Dubai, Khabib Nurmagomedov gave his opinion on the supposed feud between Ireland and Dagestan. As far a she’s concerned, there isn’t much of a feud given the vastly higher number of champions to emerge from the even smaller population of Dagestan than Ireland.

"Brother, Ireland don't have fighters, brother," Nurmagomedov said in an interview with the PFL’s social channel. "Let's be honest. How many fighters do you know from Ireland? Paul Hughes and Conor [McGregor]. And who else? There is no fighters, brother.

"You come Dagestan, you can understand. You know, so many organizations, they don't even sign Dagestan fighters because they worry about like, everybody can become champion. Let's be honest: Dagestan level of MMA here (raises arm high). But Ireland level, like not even half of Dagestan level."

Nathan Kelly riled up by Khabib Nurmagomedov comments

The controversial comments from Nurmagomedov clearly irked the three Irish fighters sharing the undercard with Hughes. Kenny Mokhonoana, John Mitchell and Nathan Kelly make up an Irish contingent looking to make their names, with the latter already surging at featherweight.

Kelly, an often soft-spoken contender, told Bloody Elbow in an exclusive chat: “The fact that Khabib was talking s*** and all that jazz, it’s just lit a little fire on my belly and I’m kind of just like’, you know, this whole thing of like, ‘oh, we’re better than them.

“I don’t really need to be motivated to fight, you know what I mean? But if someone gives me that little bit of an extra fire, I’m like, ‘thank you’, because you had that, you have to give me even more of an incentive now to go out and win.

“The team or vibe? I’m fully immersed in that I’m getting behind it… If you go online you’ll see a lot of people hating on Khabib… The fact of how dismissive he was it’s like ‘I’m going to go out and beat up your lad, and you’re going to see that I’m different.

“Maybe after that he’ll say ‘I think we like him, he’s different’. That’s all I can do. If I go out, take this lad down, stick him on his back and make a show of him in the grappling they’ll have to admit that this one is the outlier.

“It was fuel to my fire and I hope that all the other lads are the same and we have this fire lit under our belly to go and prove not just to f***ing Dagestanis but the world that we are a force to be reckoned with in MMA.”

John Mitchell offers to show Russian fighters how its done after win

The first Irish fight of the night saw John Mitchell, the only ‘home fighter’ of the evening, outgrapple Souhil Tairi to a 30-27 unanimous decision. He was less aggressive in his phrasing, but did offer to fight any of the UFC legend’s Russian charges and show off his own wrestling prowess.

“He was hardly going to be nice to us,” Mitchell joked in an exclusive chat after the victory, which brought his professional record to 10-2. “Look, if PFL want to put me in against a Russian next then let’s go, and I’ll wrestle him!

“I was completely the home fighter tonight, I’m the biggest star from Dubai and that’s going to keep going. I have all the Irish and ex-pat community in my corner so it’s only going to grow.”

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