Khabib Nurmagomedov has blasted Conor McGregor over his recent comments, labelling the Dubliner 'fake'.
The Notorious claimed he was in good shape as he teased taking on Tony Ferguson instead of Nurmagomedov at UFC 249 on April 18.
The undefeated Russian appeared to pull out of the bout earlier this week, but has since insisted he will 100 per cent fight Ferguson if the UFC sent him a location.
Responding to McGregor's comments on his fitness, the lightweight champion told ESPN: “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? 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.”
Nurmagmedov also reminded McGregor of what happened when they faced each other in the Octagon.
He added: “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."
