Conor McGregor to meet Khabib Nurmagomedov for lightweight title at UFC 229
UFC president Dana White held the best for last on Friday at a news conference to announce the promotion’s fall fight schedule.
After the event was finished, White pulled a move out of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ bag of tricks and said one more thing.
He then showed a video that announced lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov will defend his championship on Oct. 6 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas against former champion Conor McGregor in the main event of UFC 229.
It figures to be the biggest fight in UFC history and has a chance to become the first MMA match to hit two million in pay-per-view sales.
McGregor’s return was cleared when he pled guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge in New York last month regarding an incident prior to UFC 223 in Brooklyn when he threw a hand truck at a bus on which Nurmagomedov was seated.
The bout will pit the two most dominant lightweights against each other, the past champion who never lost his belt against the unbeaten champion who succeeded him.
It will be the first MMA fight for McGregor since he knocked out Eddie Alvarez in the second round at Madison Square Garden in New York on Nov. 12, 2016, to win the lightweight title and become the first UFC fighter to hold two weight-class championships simultaneously. McGregor went into that fight with the featherweight title.
It will be McGregor’s first fight of any kind since he was knocked out by Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match last year.
Nurmagomedov is 26-0 and won the title that was stripped from McGregor. He is a grappling wizard and his strength plays directly into McGregor’s weakness, which is on the ground. But Nurmagomedov’s weakness is his striking, and McGregor is one of the UFC’s finest strikers.
More from Yahoo Sports:
• Ohio State’s Urban Meyer admits he knew about allegations on ex-assistant
• EA Sports apologizes for editing out Colin Kaepernick’s name in ‘Madden’
• WWE’s Kane wins mayoral election in Tennessee
• Terez Paylor: Keeping Big Ben happy is top task for Steelers’ new coordinator
