Khabib Nurmagomedov faced the highest levels of embarrassment during his journey from Las Vegas to San Francisco. Apparently, the flight attendant from Frontier Airlines, during her routine interaction with the passengers seated at the emergency exit, asked if ‘The Eagle’ was willing to assist by opening the emergency exits during an emergency. It seemingly took Nurmagomedov a bit of time to understand what she was implying, and he jutted out a reluctant ‘yes’. However, the flight attendant had her doubts and asked the former champ to vacate his seat. Soon, the supervisor was called and Nurmagomedov was given two options – Get to another identical seat, or get off the plane. Following an argument, Nurmagomedov was escorted out of the plane. Needless, to say, it created quite an uproar among his friends.
Yes! Daniel Cormier, when he got to know about his Dagestani friend’s removal from the airlines, was highly disappointed. We’ve all seen ‘The Eagle’ conversing in English. He seldom seemed to have difficulty understanding what the other guys had to say. On top of that, Nurmagomedov is known for pushing his teammates to learn the language, just to ensure that they can talk to anyone and promote themselves. But things didn’t seem to go well for the former lightweight champion. Nevertheless, he was backed by his friend. When Cormier came across a post by @happypunch on IG, he took to the comments and wrote, “That’s really bad.”
A few hours later, Nurmagomedov took to IG to clarify a couple of things in the caption. Many people believed that ‘The Eagle’ had boarded Alaska Air. But he clarified that it was actually Frontier Airlines. He further revealed that the flight attendant was rude to him from the very beginning. Despite his fluency in English and agreement to cooperate in emergencies, she insisted that he should give up his seat. This made Nurmagomedov wonder about the reason behind it. He wrote, “What was the base for that, racial, national or other one, I’m not sure.”
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Nevertheless, the Dagestani coach boarded another plane and reached San Francisco. He was traveling for UFC 311 to corner Islam Makhachev, Umar Nurmagomedov, and Tagir Ulanbekov. Of course, DC wasn’t the only one who reacted to Nurmagomedov’s airline troubles. Let’s see what the others had to say about it.
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Professional fighters react to Khabib Nurmagomedov’s airline troubles
Colby Covington simply wasn’t going to leave a chance behind to bash ‘The Eagle’. While Nurmagomedov kept saying that it wasn’t fair at all, ‘Chaos’ took the chance and mocked the Dagestani. He went online on X and shared footage of the incident. In the caption, the former interim welterweight champion wrote, “Bratha why you fly the coach and the Alaska airlines bratha!?” Yep, this was before Khabib Nurmagomedov clarified the name of the airlines.
The first Palestinian champion, Belal Muhammad, was also upset about it all. Being a close friend, teammate, and avid follower of the former champ, Muhammad was pretty enraged with the way the airline officials handled the case. ‘Remember The Name’ reflected on the strength Nurmagomedov carried and tweeted, “He could’ve threw everyone off the plane and flew it himself if he wanted.” The Misfit boxer, Killa Carla Jade, was also disappointed at the news. She reposted the viral video on X and wrote, “Outrageous.”
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While Nurmagomedov received a boatload of support from the netizens, there were a few who sided with the airlines. According to them, it was a matter of public safety. It would certainly endanger the lives of the passengers if Nurmagomedov were actually unable to comply with the emergency exit instructions. But one thing was certain. Things could have been handled in a different way, with both parties claiming a win.
What are your thoughts on the incident? Did the airline officials do the right thing? Or was it unjust to remove Nurmagomedov from his seat? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.