It’s fair to say that Dana White’s push to have Khabib Nurmagomedov defend his UFC lightweight title one last time was almost exclusively to do a rematch with Conor McGregor. From a business perspective, why not? Their first matchup in 2018 was the first ever MMA pay-per-view to exceed two million buys, and the animosity between the two seems more real than manufactured.
So when McGregor was knocked out by Dustin Poirier at UFC 257, dreams of a Khabib rematch were essentially squashed. White revealed to media at the post-fight press conference that signs of Nurmagomedov returning to the Octagon don’t look promising.