It is not an unknown fact that Dana White was pretty fond of the Dagestani fighters. And the reason behind that fondness was the undefeated former UFC lightweight champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov. During his tenure with the UFC, ‘The Eagle’ earned massive magnitudes of respect and attention, as he continued to display his top-notch fighting prowess in the Octagon. But there was a dream fight that most of the fight fans wanted to witness. It was indeed a fight between Nurmagomedov and Georges St-Pierre. 

On multiple occasions, Nurmagomedov claimed how big of a GSP fan he was. Fighting him was indeed a dream. And White knew this pretty well. After all, St-Pierre was the one final card the UFC head honcho to play to try to bring Nurmagomedov back to the Octagon.

What did Khabib Nurmagomedov say when Dana White offered him a fight against Georges St-Pierre?

Back in 2021, Adam Catterall interviewed ‘The Eagle’ on the ‘Inspire Me Podcast’. The video has now resurfaced on YouTube and the thing that has attracted quite a bit of attention is the former lightweight champion’s revelation of how hard the UFC CEO had tried to get him back into the MMA promotion. Right at the beginning of the interview, Nurmagomedov declared that he would never enter mixed martial arts competitions again. But when he touched the subject of his dream fight against GSP, Catterall asked him about White’s tries to get him back.

Nurmagomedov narrated, “Like even couple month ago, Dana sent me, ‘Hey, Georges St-Pierre wanna fight with you’. I was like, ‘What can I do, Dana?’ He say, ‘No, I just want to say to you.’ I say, ‘Okay. I’m finished. Say hello to him.’ I sent a message, you know.” 

The Dagestani declared that he was done with being a fighter. He had already achieved whatever he had dreamed of within a span of 10 years in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. And he had different plans to earn money. He said, “But you know, it’s like when I finish, I finish brother. It was like 10 years in UFC very happy moments, you know. And I become best fighter in lightweight division. I become pound-for-pound number 1 on that time, October 2020, you know. I was like finished. Done. And if I wanna make money, I have to move to business, because MMA is for me is not business.” 

For the former champion, MMA was like a method to show the world that one can become a champion by perfectly sticking to one’s dreams. Even though the fight between Nurmagomedov and St-Pierre never materialized, it never left the discussions.

GSP weighs in on a hypothetical fight with ‘The Eagle’

Back in March 2024, GSP appeared in the ‘Pound4Pound’ podcast, alongside Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo. That was when St-Pierre opened up about the heavily debated fight against Nurmagomedov. But the fighting community didn’t expect GSP to beam with confidence against the undefeated fighter. 

St-Pierre said, “I think I would have beat him because if he would have come to put pressure on me, I would have put him down. I would have had the confidence to try to go for it.” He seemed to believe that he could have become the first mixed martial artist to have taken down the fearsome Khabib Nurmagomedov inside the MMA cage. He continued, “I think that I would have maybe been the first guy that he fought or one of the only guys that would have tried to put him down, and I’ve put down everybody that I’ve fought.”

But the fight was nothing but a dream. With Nurmagomedov’s resolve to never return to the MMA cage, all the fight fans can do is debate the what-ifs. What are your thoughts on Dana White’s tries to bring Nurmagomedov back to the Octagon? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.