Jose Aldo has slammed retired UFC star Khabib Nurmagomedov for playing down his recent achievements.
Aldo is having somewhat of a resurgence in the UFC after losing fights to Alex Volkanovski, Marlon Moraes and Petr Yan.
The former featherweight king picked up his first win at 135-pounds against Marlon Vera last December and outpointed Pedro Munhoz in August.
Aldo was showing glimpses of his dominant days as 145-pound champion, but Nurmagomedov didn't share the same opinion.
“A guy wins one fight and everyone starts talking. ... Let him fight Petr [Yan] the same way, then we can say he’s peaking again," he said at a press conference in Russia.
"You saw what he did [against Yan], he closed up and waited for the ref to stop the fight. That shows that you’re not at your peak."
“If you’re getting hit and you’re conscious and you’re not defending yourself, I call those fighters businessmen. They come out to make money.”
His comments drew the attention of several other fighters, with Aldo's old rival Conor McGregor coming to his defence by stating Brazilian is "100 times the fighter" Nurmagomedov will ever be.
And almost three months after Nurmagomedov played down Aldo's recent performance, the 35-year-old gave his opinion on the matter.
He cited 42-year-old Glover Teixeira, who won the UFC light heavyweight title at the age of 42 last month, as evidence fighters can have a second peak.
“He’s saying you can’t peak again, but we just saw an example with Glover [Teixeira], who got there, lost, and got there again at age 42 and won [the UFC title]," Aldo told MMA Fighting.
"[Israel] Adesanya himself fought [Jan Blachowicz] for five rounds, a pretty boring fight, two high-level athletes, and Glover, who’s older than me [won].
"Sometimes Khabib talks too much. He’s not doing much these days, he’s retired, so he’s looking for [attention] that way.”
Aldo defeated Frankie Edgar in 2016 to regain his UFC featherweight title, having lost it to McGregor the previous year.
He was offered an interim lightweight title fight next, but claimed his opponent had turned down the fight.
And over five years later the Brazilian has revealed Nurmagomedov was supposed to be his opponent.
“I was travelling when [my coach] ‘Dede’ [Pederneiras] called me. The [UFC] had offered me this fight and we took it," he continued.
"I said, ‘What? I want that, I’m in.’ I respect everybody, but that opportunity … I was the featherweight champion, and [Nurmagomedov] didn’t think it was a good [idea].
"I don’t know if he was expecting to fight somebody else, I don’t know what he was thinking at the time. I think it could have been a great fight."
