Kevin Lee has been chasing a fight with lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov for quite a while now.
After a failed attempt to move to welterweight, a fourth-round submission loss to Rafael dos Anjos in May, Lee will be dropping back down to 155 pounds to take on Gregor Gillespie at UFC 244.
Lee (18-5 MMA, 10-5 UFC) said his move back down to lightweight was largely due in part to Nurmagomedov’s continued dominance in the division, a challenge he’d love to take on some day.
“This is the title that I want to have,” Lee told MMA Junkie. “And after seeing the Khabib fight, the last lightweight title fight, I think some guys in the game, they see these things and they don’t … of course I’m always focused on myself, but I’m going to acknowledge when I see something that sparks a little bit of motivation out of me. And seeing what Khabib did to Dustin Poirier in the fashion that he did it in, it motivated me a little bit more to go back down.”
Having struggled in the past with his weight cuts down to lightweight, Lee admitted he was pressured to make the move up to 170.
“It was something that was kind of in the back of my mind, especially after my last fight – and if I’m being honest, maybe a little bit before, too,” Lee said. “I started my career at 155. There was a lot of pressure for me to move up to 170, and I kind of gave into that a little bit. But to be honest, my heart of hearts has always been at 155.”
Lee has been criticized for continuously seeking the Nurmagomedov fight, but no one can argue that he doesn’t aim for the toughest challenges. Despite losing three of his past four fights, the goal remains the same.
He wants to challenge Nurmagomedov for the title one day.
“That’s a big factor in me going back down, is that fight with Khabib,” Lee said. “It’s something that’s been on my mind for years now. I like a big challenge – like, the biggest challenge possible. I’m not Superman. It’s not even saying I’m going to go out there and defeat the world. But the biggest challenge, that’s the one that kind of gets me up. That’s what separates me from a lot of these dudes.”
“The Motown Phenom” got an opportunity to taste gold when he faced Tony Ferguson for the interim lightweight title at UFC 216 in 2017, but ultimately fell short and was submitted in the third round. After a strong start, Lee started to tire, and the staph infection he suffered prior to the fight started to take a toll on his body.
That’s a fight he’d like to run back, too.
“Going out there and getting the chance to compete with somebody like Khabib or Tony Ferguson, for that matter (is what I want),” Lee said. “If Tony beats Khabib, that’s a fight that I really want to get back, too. It’s one that a lot of people want to see me go 100 percent healthy in and me, too, just for my own competitive drive.”
With Nurmagomedov (28-0 MMA, 12-0 UFC) putting on one dominant display after the other, most recently submitting Dustin Poirier at UFC 242, people are having a hard time trying to solve his puzzle. His grappling has proven to be too dominant for his opponents to handle, and he’s been able to control his fights with relative ease.
The theory many have, including Ferguson’s jiu-jitsu coach Eddie Bravo, is that people are too defensive minded when they face “The Eagle.”
Lee partially agrees with that, and says he’s one of the fighters who can take it to Nurmagomedov in the grappling department.
“It could be that,” Lee said. “When you’re going against somebody and you don’t have that wrestling background that he has, it could be that guys are just afraid to engage in the wrestling. I think it’s going to take somebody who’s not afraid, and that’s me.
“I think I’m going to be somebody who’s unafraid to engage in the wrestling. I’ll even go offensive. Nobody has even threatened to take Khabib down, so once you factor all that in, it changes the whole game.”
Kevin Lee says he's not afraid to wrestle UFC champ Khabib Nurmagomedov if given chance
