UFC referee John McCarthy has given his prediction for a fantasy matchup between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Kamaru Usman
Khabib Nurmagomedov is undoubtely the greatest lightweight fighter of all time. ‘The Dagestani’ retired with a record of 29 wins and no losses. He was literally untouched throughout his career.
After having announced his retirement from the sport in October 2020, a lot of fantasy matchups began doing the rounds. The first one was – a matchup between Khabib Nurmagomedov and UFC welterweight legend Georges St-Pierre.
Many even believed that Khabib might return from retirement if a fight against GSP materialized.
Another fight which was discussed very often is between Khabib and current welterweight champ Kamaru Usman.
In a recent episode of the Weighing In podcast, former UFC referee John McCarthy weighed in on how a fight between Khabib and Usman would go. McCarthy claimed that Usman would find stopping the takedowns of Khabib pretty easy.
He said:
“Would [Khabib] he be champion? There’s a good possibility that he would. His fight against someone like Usman, it would be interesting to see, because could Usman stop the takedowns? Not many people were able to do that.”
John McCarthy believes Kamaru Usman can beat Khabib Nurmagomedov
McCarthy then explained why Usman could beat Khabib Nurmagomedov. The veteran ref claimed that Usman has got power as well as supreme wrestling ability which could help him see of Khabib.
McCarthy was quoted as saying:
“But Usman’s got a lot of great wrestling ability and he’s got power in his hands. So could he beat Khabib? Yeah he could. No doubt about it, he’s the champ and he would have the ability to do that. But in retrospect it’s 50-50, Khabib would have the ability to beat him too, it would be a fantastic fight. One that I would love to see. If he went up to 170, he would still be fantastic.”
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