Khabib Nurmagomedov was rewarded by Vladimir Putin after UFC 229

Arguably one of the biggest fights in UFC history was the one between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov. The fight sold more than 2 million PPV and still stands at the top of the charts in terms of PPV sales. Khabib Nurmagomedov defended his lightweight title at UFC 229 by defeating Conor in the fourth round of the fight. Post-fight scenes weren’t very pleasant, as an ugly brawl between Conor’s teammates and Khabib followed. The win against Conor McGregor made Khabib a superstar in the MMA community. According to UFC CEO Dana White, Khabib and his father were handsomely rewarded by Russian President Vladimir Putin after the fight.

Dana White, in a recent interaction with the “Games With Names podcast,” revealed that Khabib didn’t even reach the dressing room after the fight when he received the call from Vladimir Putin, who congratulated him for his win, gifted him with a land in Russia, and much more.

“He didn’t even make it back to his dressing room after the fight, and Putin was on the phone,” White revealed. “Putin gave him and his father, like, $20 million worth of property in Russia. Then he went into the Muslim territories where these guys are like, cars, money, gyms, whatever he wanted…
Dana White said

Khabib Nurmagomedov retired from fighting after his fight against Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 in 2020. After his father’s death a week before his last fight, he hung up his gloves at UFC 254 and remained undefeated in his professional MMA career. In 2022, he was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame alongside his friend and former two-division champion Daniel Cormier. Khabib Nurmagomedov has been out of action for more than four years now, and it is highly likely that he will not fight again despite the fact that he remains associated with the UFC as the former champion backs the reigning pound-for-pound fighter Islam Makhachev.