Khabib Nurmagomedov has admitted that he was upset to see Kamaru Usman get knocked out by Leon Edwards at UFC 278.

On Saturday night, mixed martial arts fans witnessed one of the craziest finishes in UFC history.

Leon Edwards, who was considered to be 3-1 down by many on the scorecards, pulled off an incredible upset to knock Kamaru Usman out and capture the UFC welterweight championship in Utah.

‘Rocky’ started the fight off well and likely won the first round, only for Kamaru to take over and use his dominant wrestling to really control the contest from the second onwards.

Everything seemed to be going his way until one minute from the end of the fight when Edwards landed a gorgeous head kick to finally realise his dream of becoming a UFC world champion.

Plenty of fighters and pundits had their say on what went down including Khabib Nurmagomedov, who has a close relationship with ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’.

“I watched the UFC fights in the morning. Honestly, I was shocked and even a little bit upset, you could say. Because with Kamaru I have very good relations and of course it was tough to witness the best fighter in the world, as he currently is, get sent with 50 seconds left until the end of the fight into a deep knockout.”

“I thought the fight would end primarily like it was going, like all of Kamaru’s fights. But this is fighting, this is MMA, and you saw it yourself. You miss one second and that is it. Don’t put your hand in the right place, don’t put the right defence in place, your lights can go out.”

Khabib went on to note that after that kind of knockout, many fighters never recover - but that he’s interested to see where Kamaru goes from here.

Lightweight’s response

Another contest Khabib is going to be keeping a close eye on will take place at UFC 280 later this year in Abu Dhabi.

On that night, Khabib’s close friend and training partner Islam Makhachev will attempt to become the new UFC lightweight king when he goes to war with Charles Oliveira.