MMA great Khabib Nurmagomedov will make history on Saturday by taking on fellow former UFC champion Max Holloway in the first-ever metaverse fight.
Holloway took to his Instagram page to announce the boxing match, which will combine virtual and augmented reality and take place in the Mozilla Hubs Metaverse online space.
Branding the bout an "epic event" and asking fans if they were "ready to make history", Holloway revealed that his "friends" – Nurmagomedov and the Russian's close associates, Daniel Cormier and Islam Makhachev – will attend.
The Metaverse has been championed by figures including Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg, who changed his social media company's name to Meta Platforms in 2021.
It allows individuals to interact in more immersive ways than on traditional websites while making use of virtual reality headsets and avatars.
For fight fans, the Nurmagomedov-Holloway showdown might provide some consolation for the pair having never met in the octagon in real life.
MMA historians will remember that the pair came close to a fight in April 2018, when Nurmagomedov was on the cusp of winning the lightweight title for the first time.
Nurmagomedov was scheduled to meet Tony Ferguson at UFC 223 in Brooklyn for the vacant 155lbs strap Conor McGregor was stripped of for crossing over to boxing to fight Floyd Mayweather and being inactive.
Then-featherweight champion Holloway was willing to step in on just six days' notice when Ferguson pulled out with a knee injury, and he embarked on a drastic weight cut before failing to secure the required medical clearance from commission doctors and issuing an apology to Nurmagomedov on Twitter.
"[Khabib], my brother, I want to keep going but they are stopping me," the Hawaii native said at the time. "Sorry to your team and the fans. You don’t deserve this. This is number one."
At the conclusion of one of the most hectic fight weeks the elite promotion has ever seen, Nurmagomedov eventually fought and beat Al Iaquinta after McGregor threw a metal dolly at a bus Nurmagomedov was on backstage at the Barclays Center.
Nurmagomedov and McGregor settled their differences later that year at UFC 229, with Nurmagomedov earning a brutal fourth-round submission win prior to a post-fight brawl that saw both men receive suspensions and fines.
Nurmagomedov made two more title defenses but retired after finishing Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 in October 2020.
His retirement honored a promise to his mother not to continue his career without father and trainer Abdulmanap in his corner. The revered 57-year-old coach died from Covid complications the previous July.
More than 15 months later, Khabib returns to fighting on Saturday in a fashion. In Holloway, he faces a man who recently had to scrap a trilogy bout with Alexander Volkanovski because he had aggravated a previous injury.
Had that come to fruition at UFC 272, Holloway would have tried to recapture the featherweight belt from the Australian who dethroned him in late 2019 and currently leads their series 2-0.