“There is just no way good guy Khabib used his late father’s name and Dagestan’s culture to scam his fans and fire-sell a bunch of digital NFTs online, then delete everything after they were sold, leaving his fans robbed of their money?” Conor McGregor posted on X, adding even more heat to the backlash Khabib Nurmagomedov has been dealing with over the alleged 350 million Russian Rubles NFT scam. The details behind this whole thing are still unclear, but most people expected that ‘The Eagle’ wouldn’t take his bitter rival’s words lightly. So he decided to fire back.  

Responding to McGregor’s post on X, the Dagestani legend wrote, “You absolute liar. You will always try to darken my name after you got destroyed that night, but you will never achieve that! Yes, good guys don’t do that.” He continued, “They don’t create exclusive digital gifts with real-time value that you can share with your friends and family. Gifts in the shape of Papakha, a hat that symbolizes the traditions and culture of the Dagestan people. Traditions and culture that are slowly walking over this world, whether you like it or not! Gifts that you can find exclusively on Telegram, the greatest messaging platform in the world.”

After ‘The Eagle’ clarified in his heated back-and-forth with Conor McGregor that he put the Papakha NFTs on Telegram as gifts for his fans, McGregor fired back even sharper. The former two-division champion pointed out that fans still had to purchase Nurmagomedov’s NFTs, so he refused to call them gifts and once again dragged Khabib’s late father into the mix.

McGregor responded, “Apologize this instant for using your late father’s name to sell these ‘gifts’ that cost your fans so much of their money. Also, to sell something means it is not a gift, you low IQ troglodyte! That is the direct opposite of what ‘gift’ means. Duh duh duh du—ss hahaha. Scamming on your dead daddy’s name. Shame.”  

For the unversed, KuCoin shared a report claiming that Khabib Nurmagomedov actually pocketed around 350 million Russian rubles, which comes out to roughly $4.5 million. That number came from selling 29,000 NFTs at $150 each through a Telegram-based blockchain channel. So yeah, it pretty much shows that the undefeated 29-0 legend likely made a serious chunk of money off the NFTs, which doesn’t sound like a charitable gesture at all. It feels more like a planned financial move.

Followed by McGregor’s reply to Khabib’s post, the fans chimed in as well, basically echoing the former two-division champ’s point. But some of them even took it a step further, claiming that ‘The Eagle’s response, which didn’t impress many, might have been generated by AI. So let’s take a look at what the fans have been saying. 

Fans react to Khabib Nurmagomedov’s weak response after Conor McGregor calls him out over crypto scam allegations 

One fan quickly jumped in and asked, “Exclusive digital gifts with real time value. What is the ‘time value’ of an ‘expensive emojis’” In other words, the user tried to highlight that Khabib Nurmagomedov’s NFTs were supposed to carry some kind of real value that could grow over time, giving buyers a chance to cash in later. And that’s basically the whole point of investing in NFTs in the first place.

Then, with the verbal spat between Khabib and Conor running full steam, another fan jumped in and wrote, “Khabib at this point should just come back to the UFC and fight Conor again just so they can stop all this internet talk they’ve been doing for years.” And honestly, with the UFC White House card expected next year, you can’t help but wonder if Dana White would fancy a rematch. He probably would. But it’s still highly unlikely that Khabib would break his retirement to fight again.

Following that reaction, another fan just couldn’t believe the former UFC lightweight champ typed all that English, and in pure suspicion wrote, “There’s no way Khabib wrote any of that lol.” The next obvious guess was his manager, Ali Abdelaziz, but another user wasn’t buying that either, saying, “Not even Ali wrote that. This is 100% AI lmao.” So far, there’s no confirmation that Khabib’s message was indeed generated by AI.

Adding to the mystery of who wrote ‘The Eagle’s message, another fan even theorized, “This text looks like it’s written by Pavel Durov.” And honestly, Khabib does seem to have a solid relationship with the Russian billionaire Pavel Durov, who also happens to be the developer of Telegram, the same platform where his NFTs are being sold through their blockchain program.

Then circling back to the whole “cultural gift” angle around the NFTs, another user brought up their own losses, writing, “What are you saying? I personally bought your NFTs and they’re trash today. I lost $2,900 on them.” But right after that, another fan tossed in what might be the wildest take yet, calling it Khabib’s biggest marketing move ever and writing, “KHABIB IS SO SMART HE PROMOTING HIS NFT ON CONORS HEAD AND USING HIM TO EARN MONEY AHAHHAA ANOTHER CONOR L.”

It might not have been deliberate, but Khabib definitely got a strong push here after so many people suddenly started talking about his NFTs thanks to this online clash with McGregor. That said, do you think McGregor called his bitter rival out the right way? Let us know in the comments section below.