After months of speculation, the much-anticipated showdown between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor will finally take place in Las Vegas in what is expected to be the highest grossing bout in MMA history.
News of the match-up between the two top-ranked lightweight mixed martial artists was revealed by UFC chief Dana White at a press conference in Los Angeles on Friday.
Neither fighter was present for the announcement, but White confirmed the deal had been done for the bout at the recently-built T-Mobile Arena on October 6.
Nurmagomedov, the current 155lb champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, won the vacant title against short notice opponent Al Iaquinta in April.
McGregor, the prior champion, never lost the title in the cage but was instead stripped for inactivity following a stunning November 2016 knockout of then-champ Eddie Alvarez.
The undefeated Russian fighter’s title win set him on a collision course with McGregor, the sport’s biggest star, which will finally come to a head in early October.
Since his last UFC bout, McGregor took a career detour to boxing where he was defeated by all-time great Floyd Mayweather last August, despite surprising many analysts with the efficacy of his technique in what was the Irishman’s professional boxing debut.
McGregor found himself in legal trouble in April, attacking a bus which contained Nurmagomedov in a car park within Brooklyn’s Barclays Center ahead of UFC 223.
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With those issues recently resolved, McGregor is ready to resume his fight career with what will arguably be the biggest, most lucrative fight to take place in the quarter-century history of the UFC.
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