Khabib Nurmagomedov

Khabib Abdulmanapovich Nurmagomedov is a Russian former professional mixed martial artist of Avar origin, born in the village of Sildi in the Tsumadinsky District of Dagestan on 20 September 1988. He held the UFC lightweight championship from April 2018 until vacating it in March 2021 — the longest reign in the division's history at 1,134 days — and retired with an undefeated record of 29 wins and no losses. He was the first Muslim to win a UFC title, is widely regarded as one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time, and was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame on 30 June 2022. ^{1 2}

A two-time world champion in combat sambo, he fought with a wrestling-based style of relentless pressure. After retiring he became a coach and promoter, founding the Eagles MMA team and promoting the Eagle Fighting Championship. ¹

He was born to an Avar family in Sildi, with an older brother, Magomed, and a younger sister, Amina. His father's family moved from Sildi to Kirovaul, where his father converted the ground floor of their two-storey building into a gym. His interest in martial arts began watching students train at the gym; the article recounts that as a child his training included wrestling a bear at the age of nine. ¹

He began wrestling at eight under his father, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, a decorated athlete and Soviet Army veteran who had trained in judo and sambo in the military and who dedicated his life to coaching the youth of Dagestan in the hope of offering an alternative to extremism. In 2001 the family moved to Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital, where Khabib trained in wrestling from the age of 12 and judo from 15, and resumed combat sambo under his father at 17. Abdulmanap was a senior coach for the combat sambo national team of the Republic of Dagestan. ¹

The article notes that as of 2019 he was a third-year student at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, and that he is a football supporter of Anzhi Makhachkala, Galatasaray, Real Madrid, Liverpool and the Russia national team. ¹

He made his professional debut in September 2008, winning four fights in under a month, and on 11 October became the inaugural Atrium Cup tournament champion in Moscow. Over the next three years he went undefeated, finishing 11 of 12 opponents, and a 16-0 record on the Russian and Ukrainian circuits drew the UFC's interest. ¹

He signed a six-fight UFC deal in late 2011 and won his debut on 20 January 2012, submitting Kamal Shalorus. Wins followed over Gleison Tibau, Thiago Tavares and Abel Trujillo — against Trujillo he set a UFC record of 21 successful takedowns in a single fight — then Pat Healy, Rafael dos Anjos and Edson Barboza, though recurring knee injuries delayed his rise for years. ¹

Championship reign

On 7 April 2018, at UFC 223, after a series of injuries and withdrawals among his scheduled opponents, he defeated Al Iaquinta by unanimous decision to become UFC lightweight champion. On 6 October 2018 he made his first defence against Conor McGregor at UFC 229, submitting him in the fourth round; the event sold about 2.4 million pay-per-view buys, the most ever for an MMA event, and the UFC's own athlete page confirms his record and that his last fight came at UFC 254. ^{1 2}

He then submitted interim champion Dustin Poirier in the third round at UFC 242 on 7 September 2019 to unify the titles. After the fight the two swapped shirts in a show of respect; Nurmagomedov sold Poirier's shirt for $100,000 and donated the proceeds to Poirier's charity, with UFC president Dana White matching the donation. ¹

On 24 October 2020, at UFC 254, he submitted Justin Gaethje with a triangle choke in the second round and announced his retirement in the post-fight interview, explaining that he had promised his mother he would not fight again without his late father. Despite attempted negotiations to bring him back, Dana White announced on 19 March 2021 that the retirement stood and the title was officially vacated. ^{1 2}

After retirement

He bought the Russian Gorilla Fighting Championship promotion for $1 million and renamed it the Eagle Fighting Championship. He coached and cornered a number of fighters, among them Islam Makhachev, Belal Muhammad and his cousins Abubakar, Umar and Usman Nurmagomedov, before retiring from the sport completely in January 2023 to focus on his family; he later returned as a cornerman for Makhachev's title defences, including in November 2025. ¹

He employed a wrestling-based style of relentless pressure, often described as "mauling": using wrestling and judo/sambo takedowns to force opponents against the cage, locking up their legs and an arm, exhausting them with his weight and attacking with measured strikes. Nineteen of his 29 victories came by knockout or submission. Former three-time heavyweight champion Randy Couture praised him as "brilliant", and commentator Joe Rogan called him "the most terrifying lightweight contender in the world". ¹

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum.

The UFC 229 incident. After defeating McGregor, Nurmagomedov scaled the octagon fence and charged at McGregor's cornerman Dillon Danis, and a brawl broke out between the two teams. The Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended him for nine months and fined him $500,000. He apologised to the commission, saying he had been provoked by McGregor's trash talk and the UFC 223 bus incident, adding: "You cannot talk about religion. You cannot talk about nation. Guys, you cannot talk about these things. This is very important to me." ¹

Social positions and their critics. The Guardian stated that since his high-profile victory over McGregor he had used his influential status to "further his ultra-conservative worldview". In 2018 he advocated for a crackdown on nightclubs in Dagestan and criticised a rap concert in Makhachkala, after which the rapper Egor Kreed cancelled his performances in the region. In 2019 he spoke against a play staged in Dagestan, described it as "filth", and called for a governmental investigation and a public apology; the play's producer allegedly received threats on social media. In October 2020 he posted about French president Emmanuel Macron in the wake of the murder of Samuel Paty, and was accused of "inciting violence". ¹

Other reported affiliations. The article records a longstanding affiliation with Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov, affiliations with oligarchs, his use of his UFC 223 post-fight speech to appeal to President Vladimir Putin for the release of the Dagestani billionaire Ziyavudin Magomedov — backer of his Eagles MMA team, arrested on embezzlement charges — and reports that in 2024 Russian authorities seized his bank accounts over alleged unpaid taxes and raided his Makhachkala gym after reports linking a former trainee to attacks on Christian and Jewish places of worship in Dagestan. All of these are the article's attributed reports, not findings of the museum. ¹

He is a Sunni Muslim, as the English article, the Arabic article and Wikidata all record, and the first Muslim to win a UFC title. In October 2020 The Guardian described him as the second-most-popular Muslim athlete in the world, behind the Egyptian footballer Mohamed Salah. The article notes that alongside his father he was inspired by the boxers Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson and the Brazilian footballer Ronaldo Nazário, and that he also cites the Naqshbandi sheikh Imam Shamil as an inspiration; an inspiration is not an affiliation, and no Sufi affiliation is recorded for him. ^{1 3 4}

He married Patimat in June 2013 and they have three children. His father and long-time trainer Abdulmanap died on 3 July 2020 at a clinic in Moscow, aged 57, after being placed in a medically induced coma following COVID-19 infection and heart surgery. ¹

In October 2018 he was made an "Honorary Citizen of Grozny" after the McGregor victory, was presented with a Mercedes car by Ramzan Kadyrov funded by the Akhmad Kadyrov Foundation, and his father received the title "Honoured Worker of Physical Culture of the Chechen Republic". On 5 December 2019 the head of Dagestan awarded father and son the Order For Services to the Republic of Dagestan. In 2019 Forbes ranked him the No. 1 most successful Russian athlete, and he topped its list of the 40 most successful Russian show-business and sports personalities under 40. He is the most-followed Russian on Instagram, with more than 34 million followers as of December 2022 — a dated platform figure, not a museum fact. ¹

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• The English article, the Arabic article and Wikidata each name his religion as Sunni Islam; the record follows them and attributes the value to those sources.