Former UFC champs Georges St-Pierre and Khabib Nurmagomedov went face-to-face over the weekend during a fun surprise in the United Kingdom.
Nurmagomedov, who retired almost a year ago with as lightweight champion and a 29-0 record, was on stage at the Arnold Sports Festival UK doing a live interview, when suddenly St-Pierre came out from backstage and put a friendly rear-naked choke on Nurmagomedov.
When “The Eagle” turned around to see the former welterweight king, he couldn’t help but laugh.
Check out the video of the surprise moment below:
The event’s Instagram page also shared a photo of the two all-time greats doing a classic MMA staredown.
Both Nurmagomedov and St-Pierre had expressed interest in facing each other in a fan’s dream matchup, but the timing never seemed to be right. Nurmagomedov announced his retirement from the sport following a second-round submission win over Justin Gaethje in the main event of UFC 254 in October 2020.
Prior to UFC 266 this past month, St-Pierre, who was also a UFC middleweight champion, was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.