Khabib Nurmagomedov Fires Back At ‘Small Heart’ Kevin Lee
With the UFC not having an event every weekend of the month in March, everyone’s focus is on the next PPV, UFC 223.
That event will be headlined by the lightweight title fight between interim champion Tony Ferguson and undefeated contender Khabib Nurmagomedov.
If you recall, the path to this fight was set up when Nurmagomedov picked up a win over Edson Barboza at UFC 219.
On the flip side, Ferguson would go onto fight Kevin Lee at the UFC 216 PPV (pay-per-view) event in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Lee initially missed weight for his interim lightweight title bout against Ferguson, which served as the main event of the show.
Lee came in one pound over the 155-pound limit and had to cut the last pound and had one hour to do it. He was able to do so despite him battling a staph infection.
After the situation, Lee went on record by admitting that the entire process was among his worst ever and “damn near killed” him. Ferguson would go onto win that fight.
Lee stated in a recent UFC 222 scrum that Nurmagomedov “looked terrible” in his performance over Barboza.
“I wasn’t too impressed with Khabib,” said Lee. “I’m gonna do ten times the work on Edson. . . Khabib looked terrible in that fight. He was just barreling straight forward like a tank.”
Lee is now slated to face Barboza at the UFC Atlantic City event on April 21.
Megan Olivi recently asked Nurmagomedov to talk about some of the top lightweights in the world on The Exchange on UFC Fight Pass. By doing that, he claims that Lee doesn’t have any heart.
“He wants to be tough but he has very small heart,” said Nurmagomedov (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “Very small heart. When he fought with Tony Ferguson, between second and third round, you guys can watch his face and understand everything. Face never lie. His eyes – when Tony Ferguson talks about, ‘This is my night!’ his face agrees with this.”
UFC 223 is set to take place on Saturday, April 7, 2018, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
