UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov revealed that he seen no use for ring girls when he was fighting for the company. Nurmagomedov bought the Russian mixed martial arts promotion Gorilla Fighting Championship and will rebrand it Eagle Fighting Championship. He said there will be no ring girls in his promotion.
“Look, I don’t want to offend anyone: Ring girls are the most useless people in martial arts. What is their function? I have a question. You can show that it is the second round on the screen,” he told reporters.
“I realize that is a history (behind ring card girls). History knows many mistakes. We read history to avoid mistakes of the past in the future. If we look in the history, it says they are useless. That is my personal opinion. Dana White maybe likes it. Maybe you do, too. But my name is not Dana. My name is Khabib.”
“I sit with my father (at an event). Every person has his own preferences – the culture and values. I come to fight night (and) sit with my father. These (ring card girls) are passing by and showing people that it is the second round. But no one looks at the (round number). I feel uncomfortable with my father. I am not against it. If you want, you can do it. But don’t impose it to me. Do it aside. There are the designated places for it. I think we must not mix all of it. This is my (personal) opinion,” he added.
A UFC lightweight contender is now telling him to “pick on somebody your own size” after his comments. Kevin Lee, who has claimed Nurmagomedov has a padded record while suggesting he would beat him, had a lot to say in response.
“Let me step up for them, let me stand up for them,” Lee told Sportskeeda. “Come on. Leave the ring girls alone.
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral MMA stories via Google! Follow Us
“They were here way before him. They been at way more fights than him. So why you going after the ring girls? Pick on somebody your own size.
“I guess a man don’t fight no more and feel like he needs to fight everybody. Leave the ring girls alone, we need them. We need that spirit in us.”
While calling Khabib a “great champion” to SBN, Lee poked fun at him for flirting with a career switch to football and claimed that people “are seeing now that he didn’t really have the challenges that he should have had to really be an all-time great”.
“He never really fought a great wrestler and that was something that I was seeing the whole time, coming up,” said Lee, who has lost six times in his professional career and said Nurmagomedov had dodged him.
“People are sitting back and really looking at the whole career. They’re really seeing it for what it is and not just all this hype and Russian bots that get behind him.”
