5 Defining Moments: Khabib Nurmagomedov

Khabib Nurmagomedov rose to the top of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s lightweight division with cold, calculated efficiency and an almost psychotic pursuit of excellence.

The Dagestani juggernaut’s career record now sits at 28-0 and includes a run of 12 consecutive victories inside the Octagon. Nurmagomedov quieted his few remaining skeptics at UFC 229, where he submitted Conor McGregor with a fourth-round neck crank to retain the undisputed lightweight championship and cement his claim as the sport’s alpha male at 155 pounds. His pristine resume features 10 wins by submission, eight wins by knockout or technical knockout and 10 wins by unanimous decision. Though the riddle remains unsolved, Nurmagomedov still has potential hurdles in front of him, most notably Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje.

In a career already full of defining moments, here are five that stand out:

1. Close Call

Detractors point to one Nurmagomedov fight more than any other: his controversial unanimous decision over American Top Team’s Gleison Tibau under the UFC 148 flag on July 7, 2012 in Las Vegas. All three judges scored it 30-27 for “The Eagle,” who struggled to get in gear against the hulking Tibau. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt stuffed all 13 of Nurmagomedov’s takedown attempts and outstruck him by a narrow margin. However, the unbeaten Russian was the chief aggressor for much of the match, and despite surrendering a takedown to Tibau in the third round, his persistence paid off in the eyes of the judges.

2. Another Shutout

Nurmagomedov improved to 20-0 and flexed his superiority, as he procured a unanimous decision over Abel Trujillo in a one-sided undercard affair at UFC 160 on May 25, 2013 in Las Vegas. The American Kickboxing Academy standout swept the cards with 30-27 scores. Trujillo, who entered the cage on the strength of a five-fight winning streak, never had a chance. Nurmagomedov overwhelmed the Greensboro, North Carolina, native with repeated takedowns, many of them from the rear waistlock position. He threatened with submissions throughout the first round, applied his ground-and-pound in spurts and generally made Trujillo’s life miserable for 15 minutes. By the time it was over, Nurmagomedov had recorded a single-fight record 21 takedowns.

3. Bully Beatdown

Rarely has such a high-level fight been so one-sided. Nurmagomedov made an example of Michael Johnson at UFC 205 on Nov. 12, 2016, as he submitted “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 12 finalist with a third-round kimura at Madison Square Garden in New York. He landed 140 of his 190 total strikes, executed two takedowns and passed guard six times, taunting Johnson—he could be heard urging him to quit—while he tortured him. While “The Menace” was reasonably competitive in the first round, the same cannot be said for the second and third. Across those seven-plus minutes, Johnson found the mark with just four of his 26 attempted strikes. Nurmagomedov by comparison connected on 91 of them, then isolated an arm and dismissed the Hard Knocks 365 rep 2:31 into Round 3.

4. A King Holds Court

In the absence of McGregor and Ferguson, Nurmagomedov swept to power inside lightweight division with a unanimous decision over “The Ultimate Fighter 15” finalist Al Iaquinta in the UFC 223 main event on April 7, 2018. Scores at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, read more like a coronation than a competition: 50-44, 50-43 and 50-43. Nurmagomedov secured half a dozen takedowns, outlanded Iaquinta by eye-popping margins—134-41 in significant strikes, 172-43 in total strikes—and executed seven guard passes against the Serra-Longo Fight Team standout. None of the rounds were close by any standard of measure. Nurmagomedov even outstruck “Raging Al” on the feet, where he deployed a punishing jab and mixed in occasional uppercuts, one of which had the Wantagh, New York, native’s nose leaking like a sieve in the fifth round. With that, the undisputed UFC lightweight championship was vacant no more.

5. Diamond Cutter

Nurmagomedov bolstered his resume and grew his legend, as he submitted Dustin Poirier with a rear-naked choke in the third round of their UFC 242 headliner on Sept. 7, 2019 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Poirier decided it was time to call it a day 2:06 into Round 3, becoming the latest victim of a runaway Dagestani freight train. Nurmagomedov offered the Lafayette, Louisiana, native a few glimmers of hope: Poirier appeared to connect with a sharp right hand in the second round and went all-in on a guillotine choke in the third. It was a classic case of fool’s gold. Nurmagomedov extricated himself from the guillotine, moved to the American Top Team rep’s back and snuck the rear-naked choke into place when Poirier made the mistake of leaving his chin too high and his neck exposed.