“Khabib’s Not Wrong” – Chael Sonnen Picks Sides Between Conor McGregor & Khabib Nurmagomedov as Ireland-Dagestan Rivalry Gets Ugly

There is something in the water of Dagestan that makes the tiny, sparsely populated Russian province produce a barrage of MMA champions. The most well-known among them of course, being former UFC champ Khabib Nurmagomedov. After all, ‘The Eagle’s own family and close friends have produced three MMA champions, with one of his cousins set to fight for a world championship this month.

However, ‘The Eagle’ courted controversy recently after claiming that “Ireland don’t have fighters, brother,” compared to his homeland of Dagestan. This, of course, didn’t go down well with Irish MMA fans and fighters, with Conor McGregor responding to his former foe on social media. Even non-Irish people have taken issue with Khabib’s comments. Former UFC star Darren Till (who is English) taking issue with ‘The Eagle’s take and firing off a lengthy tweet in defense of Irish MMA’s honor.

But verbose UFC analyst Chael Sonnen thinks that Till is completely mistaken. “I heard Khabib’s interview [about Ireland not having good fighters]. I then read Darren [Till’s] rebuke of the comment. The problem is Darren misquoted Khabib. Darren’s whole problem was saying ‘Hey look at the population of Ireland [5.2 million] in comparison to Russia.’ That’s the thing, Khabib never said Russia. In fact, he specifically said Dagestan [which has a population of 3.2 million]. In the village that Khabib lives in, there are two thousand people, and there were seven Olympic champions,” Sonnen said on his official YouTube channel.

Of course, Dagestan is known for its exceptional wrestlers. Part of the reason the region produces so many world-class wrestlers is because wrestling is their national sport. Just like kids in America play baseball or basketball for fun, kids in Dagestan wrestle with each other. But the fact that Khabib’s homeland produces so many world champions so consistently blew Sonnen’s mind. To explain just how stupendous of an achievement that was, the UFC analyst gave a great example.

“Seven of them have Olympic gold medals. That is crazy. Two thousand? That’s how many people I had in my high school. Khabib’s point of bragging about Dagestan per capita versus anywhere on earth. You might not like it, it may offend you but there’s no way to say he’s wrong,” he added. But this whole affair has fans wondering about one particular question.

Why did Khabib Nurmagomedov diss Ireland?

The reason Khabib Nurmagomedov compared the MMA scene of Dagestan and Ireland is because of an upcoming fight. Khabib’s cousin, Usman, who is the reigning undisputed Bellator lightweight champion is set to face Paul ‘Big News’ Hughes from Ireland in Abu Dhabi on January 25.

The whole event is being marketed as ‘Dagestan vs. Ireland 2’. This is a reference to Khabib’s famous UFC fight with Conor McGregor at UFC 229 back in 2018. In fact, Hughes even put forward a genius marketing move. The title challenger called for McGregor to be in his corner for the fight since Khabib would be in Usman’s corner. However, the Irish Bellator star has taken back his invitation to ‘Mystic Mac’ after the latter’s legal setback back in November 2024.

But it was in the context of this ‘Dagestan vs. Ireland’ event that Khabib made those comments. And as Chael Sonnen pointed out, Khabib’s blunt comparison is pretty spot on. What do you think about ‘Uncle Chael’s take on Darren Till’s response to Khabib Nurmagomedov?