Khabib Nurmagomedov trashes Kevin Lee’s UFC 216 performance

Earlier this month, in the main event of UFC 216, Tony Ferguson defeated Kevin Lee with a third-round choke to capture the UFC interim lightweight title. While Ferguson ultimately came out on top, Lee put up a valiant fight, and very nearly finished Ferguson with ground-and-pound in the first frame. In the eyes of Khabib Nurmagomedov, however, Lee fought like a “chicken.”

The undefeated Nurmagomedov trashed Lee’s UFC 216 performance on the latest edition of The MMA Hour.

“I think [Ferguson] won because Kevin Lee was fighting with him like chicken. That’s why he won,” Nurmagomedov told host Ariel Helwani. “[Lee] talked too much. He was not focused on the fight; he was focused on, I think, promoting the fight. When the fight was beginning, first round, [Lee] beat [Ferguson], and second round, [Lee] stayed with him in his distance, he ate a lot of jabs, and third round, he gave up, because he doesn’t have conditioning. That’s why.”

Nurmagomedov, of course, believe he’d fair much better against Ferguson, mainly on the basis of his frenetic pace and bottomless gas tank.

“[Rafael] dos Anjos and Kevin Lee fought with him at his distance. That’s why these guys [lost to] him,” Nurmagomedov said. “But what happens if Ferguson fights a fighter like me, who all the time tries to take him down, smash him on the ground, and never, never stop? All my life, in my amateur career, professional 24 fights, I never tire. Never, ever. In training, amateur fights, and professional fights, I never get tired.

“All my life, I never tire, I never lose, and I never give up. In training, in amateur fights, in professional fights, I’ve never given up. Never. Nobody has choked me, nobody has submitted me. Never, ever, in all my life. I’m training with a lot of fighters from different weight classes — heavyweight, welterweight, lightweight. You can ask ‘DC,’ you can ask Luke Rockhold, all fighters: I never give up and I never get tired. This is what I want to say about this.”

While Khabib Nurmagomedov has publicly stated he’d like to fight Ferguson next, it sounds as though he could end up in a UFC 219 showdown with Edson Barboza.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 10/18/2017