Khabib Nurmagomedov has fired back at Conor McGregor after the Irishman called his matchup with Tony Ferguson ‘a game of chicken.’
McGregor quickly criticized the lightweight champion after news surfaced that he has pulled out of his scheduled title-defense against Tony Ferguson at UFC 249 a.k.a ‘the most anticipated fight in UFC history.’
With the matchup potentially cancelled for a fifth time, ‘The Notorious’ said the top two lightweights are, in fact, ‘engaged in a game of chicken,’ declaring Ferguson as the winner after a 3-2 tally in terms of number of pullouts.
Last January, UFC president Dana White said McGregor is on stand by to replace any fighter in case one of UFC 249 main event stars withdrew from the fight.
In a separate tweet, Conor said he ‘is in shape to fight right now’ but did not exactly call Ferguson out.
Fake
On Thursday night, Nurmagomedov spoke to Ariel Helwani to address his situation, saying he’s not the one to blame for a potential fallout as the coronavirus pandemic has prevented the UFC to find a new venue for the fight card.
Khabib also took the chance to respond to McGregor’s recent comments.
“When I smash him last time, he said ‘my foot [is to] blame’ or something like this, ‘it was not my good shape.’ How he right now in good shape? How?” he asked.
“How we can talk about shape when I smash his face, when he tap, he said ‘it was my bad shape, I was without shape’ now we talk about ‘I am in good shape, I can come in.’”
“A couple days ago he send message ‘hey people please take care of family, be safe, stay home, government ask us stay home.’ A couple days ago, now he talk about ‘I am good shape..blah blah blah, someone have to fight, someone have to fly.’”
“For me this is fake, I was always real, maybe someone like, maybe someone don’t like, this is not my job but I was always real.”
“But this guy is fake, what are you talking about, about his shape? He go to some island and sit home all day like scared about this Coronavirus but he don’t talk about this.”
Tap Like Chicken
Of course, Khabib would later bring up his fourth-round submission victory against McGregor, saying it was the Irishman who tapped like chicken in their UFC 229 fight.
“What happened October 6, 2018?”
“When you have six months training camp, you do everything you can, you come inside the cage, you talk a lot of bad things before the fight, six months you train very hard, you come inside the cage and tap like chicken.”
“When I’m going to be here, Tony [Ferguson] is maximum interim champ, Conor always going to be No. 2, he never can do nothing with me.”
“Inside the cage, he’s zero. Like when we fight, what’d he do? He do zero. Okay, everybody talk about his standup, I give him all round, I stand with him,” he ended.
Khabib and McGregor are likely to meet in a potential rematch later this year if the Russian successfully defends his title against Ferguson.
(Featured Image Source: Instagram/ Conor McGregor and YouTube/ RT Sport)