Khabib is the biggest star in the sport.

[Bobby Boulders]

You're acting as if there are no famous or great Muslim athletes . Paul Pogba, Mesut Ozil, Mo Salah, Ngolo Kante, to name a few, are some of the best and most famous soccer players and athletes in the world. And they're all Muslims.

Muhammad Ali was kinda famous. Just a little.

 

[Noleggeisha]

Another inactive champion. Great.

 

[Sir Punchalot]

You're acting as if there are no famous or great Muslim athletes . Paul Pogba, Mesut Ozil, Mo Salah, Ngolo Kante, to name a few, are some of the best and most famous soccer players and athletes in the world. And they're all Muslims.

A tiny number compared to the stars representing other faiths (or no faith at all). And let me tell you something: people are painfully aware of that fact.

 

[Grapplefest]

A tiny number compared to the stars representing other faiths (or no faith at all). And let me tell you something: people are painfully aware of that fact.

Other faiths in plural? How many Jewish stars are there? Buddhists? Hindus? Other than the obvious Christianity, which other faiths are you speaking of?

 

[Grapplefest]

Muhammad Ali was kinda famous. Just a little.

I'm talking about currently. Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali (the two most famous combat sport athletes ever) were Muslim so its kind of odd to say that they're desperate for any random athlete to cling onto.

 

[Sir Punchalot]

As have I mentioned here before, it was definitely interesting (although also highly predictable) to note how friends of ours here in Indonesia reacted to the fact that Conor was fighting a muslim last year. While Conor is well known here and has been quite a popular guy, the moment people put two and two together ("his opponent's name is Khabib.... so he is MUSLIM, right???!??"), they were siding with Khabib, despite not having a single clue who he was or where he was from. He was muslim, and that fact alone made people cheer for him. I obviously found that rather pathetic, but it's also understandable, all things considered, and of course you see parallels in many societies that have nothing to do with religion at all. Brazilians cry tears of joy when fellow Brazilians do well internationally, and many people on this continent show signs of pride when discussing the economic growth in China, despite in many cases not really liking the Chinese. It's just that China is Asian, so if they can rise up, then the implication goes that other nations here can do so too.

 

[BooBoyMan]

Meh... A. Silva is more popular than Khabib in America, but not internationally.

I never really cared about Khabib's popularity/fame though. If anything it's kind of annoying.
A relatively 'unknown' fighter who demolishes stars simply by being the better fighter is way more appealing for me, idk about the rest of you.

Regardless, good for Khabib, I'm sure he enjoys the fame. Or maybe not lol.

 

[GSP_37]

I will continue to order every Jon Jones PPV, but not Khabib's. I didn't even order Conor vs Khabib.

 

[Terry Toughnut]

Fuck off TS

 

[SpamuraiSensei]

Jones is a bigger star

 

[humdizzle]

It would be between jones and khabib for biggest draw. And Usman is muslim too. Pretty soon Zabit will have a title as well. that would make 3 muslim champs out of the 8 mens divisions. Not bad.

And is Jones a secret muslim ? Didn't he say #alhamdullilah (glory be to god) after beating Gus.

 

[TNGS1]

If McGregor is retired..and stays retired... (which he most likely won't) Khabib is now the biggest star in the sport. Hypothetically if Conor does stay retired and never fights again.. Name a bigger star across the MMA world than Khabib.. Brock does not count. And Im talking about active fighters.


Also. I enjoy the current US trends on twitter

Jon Jones
Let khabib sell a ppv without Conor

 

[Rittsy]

If stardom is measured by number of social media followers than maybe. But actually bringing in revenue? I doubt it.

 

[balkanbomber85]

People have to understand that the popularity of Khabib is not very lucrative, independently if he has 14 or 140mil followers.

The guy is a Superstar only in the Islamic world, which means that we talk about 3rd world countries only, which then means shit if
we talk about all spheres which bring money, thus PPV, ticket sales for an event merchandise sales, advertisment, other events, etc..

The large part of his followers are guys from the south of Russia, the middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc, and those guys
tend to watch events in groups of 30 over an illegal stream, so how can cou make money with this? If they buy a Khabib shirt then
only at their local bazar and only fake stuff...

Conor, even if he had 90% less followers and fans, would still be more lucrative for than Khabib as his fans come from a part of the
world where 1. the average income is way bigger, and 2. people tend to spend money on someone they like, unless muslims which
are pretty cheap in this perspectiv

 

[mutombo]

Khabib whooped Conor sure, but he isn't half the star that Conor is.
Champ Khabib vs challenger main event will sell pretty well, but lets face it, nothing like a Conor headlined card.
Most casuals wont even watch Khabib's next fight unless its against Conor.

Rousey, Conor, Brock, all have/had bigger pulling power than Khabib ever will.

With Conor out of the picture, Jones is probably the biggest star of the active/rostered fighters right now.

 

[Sir Punchalot]

Other faiths in plural? How many Jewish stars are there? Buddhists? Hindus? Other than the obvious Christianity, which other faiths are you speaking of?

The point obviously isn't how many faiths outperform Islam in sports, but rather the fact that not having more stars representing their faith contributes to the inferiority complex that the muslim community as a whole is struggling with (a not insignificant problem and also one that I've discussed with muslims on several occasions).

As for the Jewish, whose population globally number a measly 15 million, would you expect them to produce a large number of star athletes? (Although perhaps that wouldn't be entirely unrealistic, actually, seeing how Jews are arguably vastly overrepresented among leaders in business, entertainment and academia. If you're looking for a culture that truly helps people excel, theirs might be it.

 

[Dana's Moonface]

Khabib is about to become huge!

People love an animal and look what the guy did after the fight?

Plenty of people I know that are casuals mention him a lot more than other fighters bar Conor.

Also I imagine people that are maybe racist will also buy his ppv to hopefully see him lose.

Khabib will DEFINITELY do WAY bigger numbers now!

He's going to have huge interest, whether people love him or hate him.

You haters may get used to it.

It's Khabib time!

 

[LetThemBleed]

Thanks to Conor and Russia. Khabib fighting in title fights will always be a draw from now on.

A PPV draw? Not necessarily he's still going to need a decent name to fight against him. Khabib versus say Poirier a fight which could well happen wouldn't do over 1 million buys unless the rest of the card was seriously stacked. Not sure if the 1 million plus mark is attainable any more unless Lesnar comes back or Jones DC 3 at HW happens, even then it could be a stretch.

 

[Dana's Moonface]

Muhammad Ali was kinda famous. Just a little.

Who's he?

Is he a manager?

 

[vanillaisis]

GSP, Jones, and Brock all sell more PPVs than Khabib does against similar competition.