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Khabib Nurmagomedov's coach recently named Islam Makhachev and another pound-for-pound great as the UFC's biggest stars. He noted how the promotion has built stars, while singling out his pupil and another current champion.
AKA coach Javier Mendez has been around the sport for decades and has coached many Hall of Famers and former UFC champions. In doing so, Mendez has seen the sport grow and evolve to a global entity, which has resulted in more international stars emerging.
In the latest episode of his The Javier & Mo Show, Mendez explained how Makhachev relinquishing his lightweight championship could benefit the UFC in creating another big star.
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Mendez named the Dagestani and Jon Jones as the top stars in the UFC, but highlighted a difference between the two as 'Bones' hasn't made it easy for the promotion to do the same at heavyweight. He said:
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"[Ilia] Topuria can in at 155 [pounds] and if he wins there, [the UFC] create a big star in Topuria, so now you got bigger stars. As it is right now in my opinion... I think the biggest stars in the UFC presently, the biggest, I think it's Jon Jones and it's Islam. And [Jones] fights when? He fought one time in how many years? And now they're having a hard time getting him to sign on the dotted line for a fight Tom Aspinall."
Check out Javier Mendez's comments below (10:07):
Javier Mendez claims Khabib Nurmagomedov is a bigger star than Jon Jones
Javier Mendez also believes Khabib Nurmagomedov is a bigger star than Jon Jones and explained how his pupil's incredible MMA career isn't even the reason for it.
In the aforementioned episode, Mendez stated that Nurmagomedov's star power is due to his faith and reputation for staying true to that in addition to being known as a former UFC champion:
"Understand this, Khabib has a Muslim population of almost two billion Muslims in the world that never even seen MMA, don't even know MMA, but they know Khabib because of why? Because he is a devout Muslim, So that's a big reason why Khabib is bigger [than Jones]... But you cannot say that Jon Jones is not a superstar." [22:20]
Check out Khabib Nurmagomedov's UFC Hall of Fame induction below:
