Beating Conor was obviously the icing on the cake, but he was well known prior to this. How did he become so popular?
Like you say, beating Conor in the biggest fight in the history of the sport is the main ingredient, but I think there are several contributing factors that are impossible to ignore. 1.) he got tons of favorable coverage on the JRE with Rogan and Schaub back in 2014/2015/2016. That was a time where Khabib was dealing with one devastating injury after another, but with those two hyped him relentlessly. And when he beat Michael Johnson, it was clear the hype was warranted. 2.) he has created a lot of viral moments. 'Number 1 bull****' reached near God-meme status. His post-fight interview at UFC 205 was among the best call outs ever: This content is protected He has a knack for saying things that are memorable. 3.) For the 1.6 Muslims in the world he represents a pretty good role model. He's not perfect, but his sincere piety, his family focus etc. marks a vivid contrast to Amir Khan's philandering, materialism, and shallowness. 4.) He can fight like hell, and people are simply attracted to someone who can achieve dominance year after year.
Can anyone direct me to an entertaining fight of his? Haven't followed MMA as much as I should be. Is he finally fighting Tony?
Yeah I guess he is gained popularity around the world since the Conor fight,especially with a big muslim following but before that fight his PPVs etc were among the lowest and even his last fight with Poirier apparently didn't get massive views. While he is clearly a beast in the cage and 1 of the top 3 P4P fighters in MMA,the way he fights doesn't draw in the fans the way top strikers or more entertaining and charismatic fighters do imo.
Bingo, Khabib is an animal but he's beaten up and bullied no name scrubs and mediocre UFC talent the majority of his career. He's got out fighting him a few times but there's no escaping a hungry TFerg this time and I can't wait to see how Khabib handles it when Fergerson puts it on him with a pace and energy he hasn't faced yet and I can see him even stopping him in the mid to late rounds
Beating Conor i'd say, the **** Conor was saying to him in the press conference and Khabib destroying him gained him a following from casuals. Before that he was known but was always injured or couldn't make weight.
I only heard of him because of Colin McGregor and their famous press conferences. He should be thankful to Connor McGregor and his trash talking because no one knew who he was before.
He was undefeated, dominant, the Papkha (yellow hat), unintentional funny weird personality ("send me location," "this is not burger king sport" etc) but the fight and win over Conor catapulted him to being a main stream star/athlete for sure.
