Khabib Nurmagomedov was offered a staggering $100 million to face Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a boxing fight, according to the MMA star's manager Ali Abdelaziz.
Khabib retired from mixed martial arts in 2020 following his Oct. 24 victory over Justin Gaethje via triangle choke in the second round. Similarly, Mayweather has been retired from professional boxing since August 2017 when he stopped Conor McGregor — also a victim of the Russian in a 2018 UFC grudge fight — to go 50-0.
Since then, however, Mayweather has pasted kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa in a boxing exhibition in Japan, and will face YouTuber Logan Paul in another exhibition on Feb. 20.
Abdelaziz told TMZ that Mayweather, 43, wanted Khabib to follow McGregor over to boxing for a huge one-off payday and that UFC president Dana White was okay with it.
Mayweather retired from boxing in August of 2017, after stopping UFC two-division champion Conor McGregor in ten rounds at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
"Listen, we got offered $100 million to fight Floyd Mayweather. Dana White was on board, everybody was on board. But, you know, Khabib is an MMA fighter. If Floyd wanted to come to fight [in MMA], get his little ass whooped, no problem," Abdelaziz said.
It is something Nurmagomedov himself discussed back in October, prior to his final bout vs. Gaethje, telling Yahoo Sports at the time that he just wanted to focus on the task at hand inside the Octagon.
"Always, like every month people call me and they ask me, 'You going to fight with Floyd Mayweather if we pay you $100 million?' It's like crazy. I want to be focused on Justin Gaethje, please. Every month, some people from Saudi Arabia, from Emirates, from a lot of countries, like always try to make contract with me," Khabib said.
Nurmagomedov chose to retire undefeated in MMA following the death of his father. He noted at the time that he had promised his mother following the tragic news that the Gaethje fight would be his last.