Brian Kelleher has offered Conor McGregor an opportunity to square off with his biggest rival once again.
The Irishman’s grudge with Khabib Nurmagomedov is one of the deepest in combat sports history. There’s no level of admiration between the pair, just pure hatred. With that level of disdain, emotions unsurprisingly boiled over before and after the fight.
The violence began outside the octagon when McGregor launched a dolly through a bus window. The disgusting attack, which injured and scared the fighters onboard, was intended to respond to Khabib slapping Artem Lobov.
This fiasco led to one of the most eagerly-anticipated fights of all time. The bad blood between the lightweights worsened at the press conferences when the Dubliner made several discriminatory jibes towards his opponent.
By the time they set foot in the octagon, Khabib wanted to prove a point—and he did just that. The Russian dismantled his opponent en route to a fourth-round submission victory. But the drama wasn’t over yet. The Dagestani showed precisely why they call him the ‘The Eagle’ as he jumped the cage and flew towards Dillon Danis.
This act prompted a mass brawl between members of both teams, and proceedings quickly took a turn for the worse. As the fighters exchanged blows, a dark cloud descended over the event. In the aftermath, fans almost forgot about how well Khabib fought. The post-fight brawl was the dominant talking point.
Read: Conor McGregor next fight: Five potential opponents for ‘The Notorious.’
However, as the saying goes, ‘all publicity is good publicity’. Despite Khabib’s thorough demolition job, the calls for the rematch grew stronger and stronger. But, although Dana White wanted a historic second collision between the two icons, he could not get it over the line.
This failure keeps the Irish superstar up at night. He’s still desperate to face off with Khabib once more, and thanks to an offer from a fellow martial artist, he might have the chance to do just that.
Brian Kelleher offers Conor McGregor a massive opportunity
Kelleher is scheduled to collide with Khabib’s cousin, Umar Nurmagomedov, at UFC 272 on March 2. And he wants ‘The Notorious’ in his corner.
Kelleher has taken to Twitter to give McGregor a very public offer. But he’s yet to hear back from the former two-weight world champion.
Although this wouldn’t give the 33-year-old the rematch he craves, it would allow him to get in Khabib’s face and potentially provoke the all-time great out of retirement.
This potential marketing tool would not only provide McGregor with an opportunity to spring back into stardom, but it would drastically increase the publicity that Kelleher and his opponent would get. However, there’s no guarantee that the UFC would be willing to risk the potential explosion that’d likely occur at ringside.
McGregor hasn’t won a fight since January 2020. He is still nursing himself back to health after sustaining a broken tibia in his trilogy bout against Dustin Poirier last summer. But as unlikely as Kelleher’s vision is to occur, there’s no denying that it would make for fascinating TV.
Featured image credit: Getty
