Khabib Nurmagomedov has said his career is not too far from the end and claimed he will sit down after his April fight with Tony Ferguson and consider his future.
The Russian will finally face Ferguson at the fifth time of asking, after one or the other has cancelled on four previous occasions, with Khabib's lightweight title on the line on April 18th at UFC 249.
Khabib clearly doesn't think that his career will extend much further than April, whatever the result, and has dropped a hint over his retirement. Speaking to RT Sport the 'Eagle' said, "We don't have a plan for when we're going to finish but I do know it is not over the mountains, as they say. That time is very close.
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"I don't want to think about the future, I still have to live to April, I still have to fight, I need to win. So, I don't like to look too far ahead. Now we have an opponent, Tony Ferguson, a very serious opponent. And I think it's necessary to have this fight then we'll sit down and think about what's next.
"We'll consider whether there's any point in fighting any more. There will always be a reason to fight - money. But will we need it? We'll think about it. I feel good now. I'm 31 and it's a very good age to fight, and for sport. I'm far from retirement age, but it's around the corner."
The champ is clearly confident that he can beat Ferguson, explaining why he will win, "I think I'm a lot better than him at wrestling, I'm much better than him physically. I'm tougher than him, and I haven't lost yet, unlike him." Khabib said.
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"Unlike him I haven't been knocked down yet. He has, I believe seven UFC knockdowns, a lot of falls from punches. So I can hit, I'm going to hit him especially hard."
The Eagle won't be taking his next opponent lightly though, adding, "As an opponent I take him very seriously. I train wherever I am but from January I'll start training hard. If I started intensive training in December it would be wrong because then it would be four months, you can overload. To distribute the load evenly, we'll start in January.
"That's about 100 days of hard training and, as they say, [get] into battle."
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Of course one man who will be paying particular attention to Khabib's next fight and his future plans will be is Conor McGregor with the Irishman returning to the octagon in January, he'll definitely want a rematch with his rival at some point.
Topics: Donald Cerrone, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor Mcgregor, UFC News, MMA News, UFC 246, Tony Ferguson, Lightweight champion, UFC, MMA, UFC 249