The law appears to have gotten the better of former UFC champion Cain Velasquez. The 42-year-old was involved in an unfortunate shooting in California back in 2022, and he finally received his judgment, where he was sentenced to five years in prison. However, the nature of the incident has led many fighters to defend Velasquez’s actions, and one of them was his ex-teammate Khabib Nurmagomedov.

For the unversed, Cain Velasquez had been out of prison and put on house arrest for chasing down a man who allegedly assaulted his young son. In the process, the ex-UFC star even fired a few rounds from a gun, clipping the man’s stepfather, and for that, Velasquez will spend five years in prison. In the wake of the fighters backing the former heavyweight champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov’s statements about the incident from a 2022 interview have come to light.

‘The Eagle’ did not run out of words while praising Cain Velasquez for the kind of person he really was, as they were together for more than a decade, training with each other at the American Kickboxing Academy. In his statements, Khabib Nurmagomedov understood where the anger to chase the man and attack him stemmed from. ‘The Eagle’ believes it was just a natural response of a father who wants to ‘protect’ his loved ones. And guess what? The Hall of Famer even claimed that animals do the same.

“Anybody in the world who respect himself, who love his family is gonna do same thing exactly. Come on. Nobody gonna think about law or something when you have something about your family. You have to protect your family,” Khabib Nurmagomedov told TMZ. “If animals protect their family, of course, humans are gonna protect your family.”

The former lightweight champion also weighed in on the fact that the man who assaulted Cain Velasquez’s son hasn’t faced any legal repercussions so far. Claiming that he’s the real ‘danger’ to society, ‘The Eagle’ sounded pretty irritated and disappointed with how the whole situation worked against his former AKA teammate.

“This is not fair. He sit in jail and other guy, he’s like outside. What about other guy? Okay, put this guy jail too. He more dangerous for people than Cain Velasquez,” Khabib Nurmagomedov added. “What happens, he act like anybody’s gonna act. This is his kids, you know? … Cain dangerous only for one minute, but this guy dangerous for anybody. He is outside, I don’t understand this.”

Besides the support from Khabib, Cain Velasquez had the backing of his former head coach, Javier Mendez. In fact, the AKA head coach issued a lengthy and emotional message after the court’s verdict on the shootout incident from 2022. Here’s what Mendez had to say.

Team Khabib Nurmagomedov encourages Cain Velasquez to keep his chin up

The entire Team Khabib and American Kickboxing Academy shared messages of support to Cain Velasquez in these tough times. While ‘The Eagle’ wrote, “Stay Strong Lion,” on social media, Islam Makhachev also shared a story of himself with the former heavyweight champion. Meanwhile, Velasquez, who’s a much older student of Javier Mendez, received a heartwarming message from his coach, who urged him to keep his hopes up.

“Warrior, Cain, you are the man. That won’t ever change. You’ll approach this like you’ve done every step of your life. See you soon, champ,” Javier Mendez wrote on Instagram. “I was hoping that they either would have given you time served or at least continued to stay on home arrest, where you have clearly shown and demonstrated to be an asset to the community.”

Guess what? Even the judge, Arthur Bocanegra, who handed Cain Velasquez the sentence, was nearly brought to tears during the hearing. This is a tragic situation, nonetheless, and it remains to be seen what unfolds in this saga in the coming years.