If you were to ever plan out a perfect UFC career, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better example than Khabib Nurmagomedov. Stepping away from the sport with a record of 29-0 after his final UFC bout against Justin Gaethje at UFC 254, ‘The Eagle’ announced in his post-fight interview, “Today I want to say this was my last fight, no way I’m going to come here without my father.”

But while he did transition over to being a successful coach in retirement, Nurmagomedov has recently been dealing with several issues with the government stemming from allegations of tax debt and more. So what does that mean for the former UFC lightweight king’s future? According to UFC veteran Chael Sonnen, there seems to be more than meets the eye behind the UFC deciding to recently release Nurmagomedov’s epic clash with Conor McGregor, albeit with some curious edits!

Chael Sonnen puts forth an interesting theory about Khabib Nurmagomedov’s future 

In 2018, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor stepped inside the Octagon to put on the highest-grossing PPV of all time for the UFC. While the event was marred by a post-fight altercation between the two camps with ‘The Eagle’ soaring out of the cage in fury after submitting the Irishman, there’s no denying the impact the fight had on the sport of mixed martial arts.

Since then, McGregor hasn’t shied away from taking shots at Nurmagomedov at every opportunity. As such, speaking on his YouTube channel, Chael Sonnen revealed, “Now there is rumors about Khabib that are going on online and like the government is looking into him and or the gym that he has, however this goes. So, I will share with you that as exaggerated and as misunderstood as a lot of those articles are, they’re not unfounded. There is an issue that Khabib’s having to deal with.”

He further explained that the UFC owns the rights to its fight content and frequently releases past fights to promote upcoming events. Typically, they release a fight that showcases a fighter in a positive light. Sonnen explained, “If you’re promoting a guy, you don’t remind people of a loss. You don’t bring something back from the past that is negative while you’re trying to shine him up.”

Despite this common practice, the UFC not only released the Khabib vs. McGregor fight but also edited it. They removed the original commentary, which is highly unusual. Sonnen questioned the move by the promotion as he stated, “They not only released it, which would take 5 seconds of releasing the code. They edited it. In fact, the way of editing it is, they did away with the commentary. I don’t know why.”

Releasing a fight where McGregor lost, without having ‘The Eagle’ under contract, seems counterintuitive if the goal is to promote McGregor. As such, Sonnen suggested while the exact reasons remain speculative, in his opinion the UFC’s decision could have been deliberate and possibly tied to the ongoing issues surrounding Khabib Nurmagomedov.

‘The Eagle’ reportedly dealing with multiple issues with the authorities  

The past few months have been rough for Khabib Nurmagomedov to say the least. Reports emerged that the former UFC star’s bank accounts were frozen due to an approximately $3 million debt to the government and the Russian Federal Tax Service (FTS) had stepped in. However, Nurmagomedov’s representatives released a statement where they claimed that, “The information about tax debt is inaccurate. Khabib continues to engage in business projects and develop them.” But eyebrows were raised when later, reports emerged by Russian journalists that Nurmagomedov had obtained a UAE citizenship during the same period. 

After the June 23 attacks in Dagestan, ‘The Eagle’s gym was also raided by the police as a part of the investigation into possible links of one attacker, Gadzhimurad Kagirov, to the MMA camp. However, Nurmagomedov vehemently denied any association with the suspect as he stated, “Yes, he had a camp at the gym at some point, maybe for a couple of months. But he was never part of the team.”

To wrap things up, it remains to be seen what the future holds for ‘The Eagle’ once he gets past these turbulent times. But with the UFC going through the effort to edit his McGregor fight footage and Chael Sonnen’s speculation of a deeper meaning behind it, the MMA world will have to wait and see what happens next. Do you think there’s a chance Khabib Nurmagomedov comes out of retirement? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!