Do we like them?

Do we like Khabib Nurmagomedov?

Our score: 4 out of 10. Real good alongside real stains: his own words on women, a long friendship with a strongman, and a thin record on LGBTQ+ issues.

Khabib was born on 20 September 1988 in the mountain village of Sildi in Dagestan, into an Avar family, and grew up in a wrestling household: his father was a coach who trained 11 world champions. He entered the UFC at 23, became the first Russian UFC champion in April 2018, then beat Conor McGregor at UFC 229 that October.

The famous stain is what came after that win. Having submitted McGregor, Khabib jumped into the crowd after McGregor’s teammate Dillon Danis, which set off a brawl. The Nevada commission voted unanimously to fine him $500,000 and suspend him for nine months, with a path to six if he did an anti-bullying public service announcement. One hot-headed night rather than a pattern, but it was a big night.

The women question is the live one. At a real estate event in March 2026 he said, according to Full Mount MMA, “God created it this way: a woman is weaker, a man is stronger.” Fans on X pushed back, one writing “If he actually said this it is extremely sexist.” The report carries no direct reply from him, so that’s where it sits.

On the harm test, he’s a mix. The Guardian’s 2020 profile reported that he led a training seminar at the Akhmat MMA club of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, was made an honorary citizen of Chechnya, and promoted Kadyrov as a strong leader in a border dispute; the author called Kadyrov a “murderous tyrant”. It also reported he used a UFC speech to ask Putin to release his sponsor. Nothing I opened shows him attacking LGBTQ+ people himself, and no vaccine or climate claims turned up, but the Kadyrov friendship is a hard look.

Lately he’s mostly been a coach and promoter, leading a team of fighters at PFL’s Dubai card in February 2026, calling them “like my young brothers” and saying their success is what keeps him going. In April, Tsarukyan alleged on a podcast that Putin had built Khabib a gym; Khabib replied on Instagram that it was “absolutely not true” and nobody paid his bills or built gyms for him.

The good stuff is real but thin on the record I could open. After UFC 242 he wore Dustin Poirier’s shirt and said he’d sell it and give the proceeds to Poirier’s Good Fight Foundation, a classy gesture to a rival. Beyond that, the story is mostly a man pouring his time into training younger fighters, which is nice but not a cause.