Report | Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Conor McGregor in the works for UFC 229

The rumor of all MMA rumors continues to find it’s legs. We may be getting closer to finally seeing Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov meet inside the octagon.

Russian MMA insiders, MMA Team Dagestan have reported that the potential lightweight championship bout is in the works for the October 6th date in Las Vegas at UFC 229.

https://twitter.com/MMATeamDagestan/status/1007725877189402624

https://twitter.com/MMATeamDagestan/status/1007772530319482880

⚡BREAKING: @TeamKhabib vs. @TheNotoriousMMA in the works for UFC 229 October 6, Las Vegas, T-Mobile Arena.

⚡️Khabib’s father: ”It is undesirable to say about this now, but negotiations are nearing completion”#UFC229 @TeamKhabib vs. @TheNotoriousMMA

MMA Team Dagestan is known for covering and breaking news related to several top Russian fighters and prospects. Most recently they reported that Mark Hunt would be the replacement for Fabricio Werdum against Alexey Oleynik at UFC Moscow which was confirmed by Ariel Helwani as well as Alexander Volkov being the backup for Daniel Cormier or Stipe Miocic at UFC 226 if needed.

While nothing is official, this is the fight that Dana White has reiterated as ‘the fight to make’. It will indeed be interesting to see how things unfold with McGregor’s current court case though as he appeared in court for the first time yesterday for the bus attack incident during UFC 223’s fight week. His team is in pursuit of a plea deal and will return on the 26th of July.

That same week, the believed target of the whole situation, Nurmagomedov became the new undisputed lightweight champion when he defeated Al Iaquinta in UFC 223’s main event.

Assuming the fight were to happen at the October UFC date, it will have been 23 months since McGregor last fought inside an MMA enclosure.

He, of course, last fought in a combat sports environment in August 2017 when he fought in a losing effort to Floyd Mayweather in their cross-sport boxing match spectacle.

This would make for Nurmagomedov’s first title defense and McGregor’s third UFC title shot as well as just his second UFC lightweight bout.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 6/15/2018