On Friday, 3 August 2018, the UFC announced that Nurmagomedov would make his first defence of his lightweight title. This would be against Conor McGregor at UFC 229 on 6 October in Las Vegas. The build-up to the fight is one of the darkest chapters of UFC history with various confrontations between the two camps. To say emotions were running high or there was no love lost between them, was the understatement of the century.
Post-fight brawl
In the match itself, Nurmagomedov won the first two rounds, but lost to McGregor in the third round. Khabib had never lost a single round until that point! He managed to defeat McGregor in the fourth round via submission. The event is notorious (no pun intended) for the aftermath of the contest. An enraged Nurmagomedov (goaded by McGregor teammate Dillon Danis) scaled the Octagon and attempted to attack Dillon Danis. This resulted in a mass brawl between the two teams with resulting fines and bans from fighting for both fighters afterwards. The event drew 2.4 million pay-per-view buys, the most ever for an MMA event.