Khabib Nurmagomedov rips Conor McGregor for ‘ducking tough matchups’

Khabib Nurmagomedov is not a fan of what kind of fights Conor McGregor has been taking and asking for.

At UFC 246, McGregor made his return to the Octagon against Donald Cerrone who was on a two-fight losing streak. For Nurmagomedov, he believes the Irishman did that to avoid fighting legitimate challenges like Justin Gaethje.

“Cowboy always loses all his main event fights,” Nurmagomedov said to TMZ (via BJPENN.com). “I don’t remember when he wins. His last ten fights, I think he win seven times. Six or seven times. He’s not a high level lightweight or welterweight. He’s not. Of course he has big name, but his time is finished. Conor picked very good opponent.

“Now they talk about ‘this guy [McGregor] come back,’” Nurmagomedov added. “No, he have to fight with really tough opponents, like Justin Gaethje or something like this, and you have to come back to lightweight division. This is just my opinion.”

“I think he’s ducking tough matchups, not only Justin Gaethje. He just choose ‘ok, who’s going to be my next fight, I need easy fight.’ Of course he can because he’s big star.”

Since Khabib Nurmagomeodv beat Conor McGregor at UFC 229 by fourth-round submission. Since then, there has been talks about a potential rematch as even Dana White said he wants to make that scrap.

But, according to Nurmagomedov, he says McGregor is not a contender and the rematch is only about money for the UFC.

“People just want to see drama,” Nurmagomedov said. “If you ask people ‘guys, who’s going to win?’ 99, 100% going to say Khabib, like he did the first time. People want to see big drama show. If you talk about money, this [rematch] is good, if you talk about drama, this is good. If you talk about real lightweight contender, real lightweight contendership fight, this is not good. This is not real.”

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Cole Shelton
Cole Shelton covers MMA for BJPenn.com, MMANews, and MyMMANews.com while also being the lead MMA odds writer for Sports Betting Dime