Khabib Nurmagomedov (photo via UFC)

By FCF Staff

After it was announced that Khabib Nurmagomedov was not cleared to compete at UFC 209 this Saturday, Dana White blasted his team for not calling the UFC’s physicians, and the fighter’s manager admits they made a mistake.

Nurmagomedov was supposed to fight Tony Ferguson for the interim lightweight title at the event, but on Thursday, he started experiencing medical difficulties while cutting weight. The fighter’s team decided to take him to a local hospital in Las Vegas, but eventually, Nurmagomedov was ruled ineligible to complete.

Later, White criticized Nurmagomedov’s team for not informing the UFC of what was going on, so that they could have the company’s own physician treat the lightweight.

Nurmagomedov’s manager, Ali Abdel-Aziz, was a guest on the latest “MMA Hour”, and he had this to say about White’s comments (quote via MMA Fighting):

“I know Dana came out and said I should have called the UFC doctor, or called (UFC medical claims official) Briana [Mattison], but I never did this before. And you know what? Dana is right. I wish I called Dr. Davidson, because we went to the Sunrise Hospital, and were there for almost seven hours. And they treated us so poorly. And now, I got a little offended when Dana was talking, but he’s right. If we called the UFC doctor — that I never had before, I didn’t know I was supposed to call him — we would have gotten probably treated like kings.”

“Listen, I don’t know if the fight can be saved or maybe can be saved if we went to a different hospital, but the first thing they wanted to do with Khabib, they want to stick him with some IVs,” Abdel-Aziz added. “Me and the doctor who’s fighting with Khabib to put an IV in him, he fought him for almost an hour-and-a-half, and finally the pain was so great, he just got an IV with some medication in it, and we all submitted. Now he probably went back to 165 or so, there’s no way this fight can happen.”

Recently Nurmagomedov posted a statement, whereby he apologized for not being able to compete. The vaunted grappler also reported that he’s recovered and doing well.