'I will make an announcement on my future soon': UFC champ Khabib promises update on career

UFC lightweight champ Khabib Nurmagomedov has promised fans an update about his future "soon", as the promotion's 155 lbs ruler has been lying in limbo since his proposed title defence against Tony Ferguson was annulled in April.

READ MORE: Khabib teammate Islam Makhachev could return to UFC in July-August - manager

The fifth time the two were penciled in to fight each other will almost certainly be the final; when Khabib became stranded in his native Russia following the outbreak of Covid-19, Justin Gaethje stepped up as a replacement and shocked the MMA world by battering Ferguson into a 5th-round TKO loss.

By dispatching 'El Cucuy', Gaethje clinched the interim lightweight belt and earned the right to meet 'The Dagestani Eagle', and talk now surrounds a matchup between the pair in the absence of Ferguson and the newly-retired Conor McGregor.

Khabib on Tuesday promised fans an update on his own career in a picture together with fellow Dagestanis and UFC fighters, featherweight Zubaira Tukhugov, and cousin and welterweight Abubakar Nurmagomedov.

"These two have been grinding all summer and will return at the beginning of autumn (September), we wish them luck," the 31-year-old write. "About my own future, I will make an announcement soon." 

Since flying back to Dagestan at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Khabib has had to endure the personal hardship of his father and trainer Abdulmanap being seriously struck down by Covid-19 infection, from which he is still recovering.

Nurmagomedov Sr. was twice entered into a medically-induced coma after undergoing heart bypass surgery after suffering a stroke brought on my the disease, and is convalescing in a Moscow hospital.