Conor McGregor said Khabib Nurmagomedov will be 's----ing his pants' when he fights Justin Gaethje in October
- Conor McGregor has once again ridiculed his lightweight rival Khabib Nurmagomedov's fighting style.
- McGregor said Nurmagomedov will be "s----ing his pants" when he defends his UFC lightweight championship against Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 in October.
- Nurmagomedov said he would look to drown Gaethje in deep waters, implying he will drag him to the floor and inflict ground-and-pound strategies from there.
- McGregor then interpreted this as a refusal to engage in stand-up, and was therefore a sign of a weakness.
- He said Nurmagomedov just wants a "good whiff" of Gaethje's jock-strap.
Conor McGregor said Khabib Nurmagomedov will be "s----ing his pants" when he defends his UFC lightweight championship against Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 in October.
Gaethje is riding the high of an upset victory over the well-rounded mixed martial artist Tony Ferguson earlier this summer.
Ferguson was originally scheduled to fight Nurmagomedov in April, but the worsening spread of the novel coronavirus around the world nixed that show, before the Dagestani wrestler had to be replaced because of travel restrictions.
Gaethje stepped-in at short notice, in the middle of a pandemic, to fight Ferguson and not only halted the Californian's extraordinary run of 12 wins in a row, but obliterated him in style, stopping him in the 5th round of a bloody battle.
Now Gaethje, who has a collegiate wrestling background but abandons that base in favor of stand-up fights, takes on Nurmagomedov at an as yet undisclosed location in two months' time.
Nurmagomedov warned Gaethje that he is not Ferguson and presents a different stylistic challenge, one in which he would drag him to the canvas and inflict nasty ground-and-pound.
"Justin is a very nice guy and good opponent for me, but when [the] Octagon closes, he has to be ready not only [for a] boxing match. I'm not Tony … I will take him to the deepest ocean and drown him," said Nurmagomedov, according to ESPN MMA.
It was not long before McGregor seemingly interpreted this as a refusal to engage in stand-up, and therefore is a sign of weakness.
"In other words — 'I'm going to be running around the outside of the cage, s----ing my pants. And within the first 10 seconds of the fight, I'm diving at his legs for a good whiff of his jockstrap'," said McGregor, also according to ESPN MMA.
McGregor lost to Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 in 2018 during a wild fight in which he was dropped by a thudding right hand and then stopped for good when Nurmagomedov made him tap from a tight neck crank.
It is unclear whether the Irishman will challenge the winner from October's UFC lightweight championship bout, but should Nurmagomedov win — extending his unbeaten record to 29 fights — then he will be able to call the shots and dictate who and where he contests the 30th, and likely final, bout of his career.
That 30th bout could be a mega-match against the all-time great welterweight fighter Georges St. Pierre, who recently said he would return to the UFC providing the company made him an offer he could not refuse.
Read more:
Inside UFC's 'Fight Island,' where its top stars took late-night joyrides at 160mph, sunbathed in 115 degree heat, and played golf at dawn