Khabib insists feud with McGregor will never be over

UFC Lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has said his feud with Conor McGregor will never be over.

Nurmagomedov and McGregor fought at UFC 229 where the Dagestani fighter won via submission in the fourth round. After the fight, both men became embroiled in a brawl that saw Nurmagomedov scale the fence of the Octagon and charge towards McGregor's cornerman Dillon Danis, while the Dubliner scuffled with Nurmagomedov's cousin Abubakar Nurmagomedov. The Nevada State Athletic Commission issued Nurmagomedov a nine-month suspension (retroactive to October 6, 2018) and a $500,000 fine, while McGregor received a six month suspension and a $50,000 fine for his part in the incident. UFC President Dana White said McGregor wanted a rematch with Nurmagomedov after their fight and now the undefeated 30-year-old has told ESPN that his feud with McGregor and his team has not finished. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKxOgMWJSYY

"Even this fight finish, not everything is finished,” Nurmagomedov said. “Just smash people it’s not enough. I talk about just smash only him? It’s not enough. We have to smash all his team. This is what I think before the fight. This is what I say to my team. ‘Hey, tonight, we’re going to war. This is not about fight.’

“It will never be finished. Never. Ever. Even if we see [each other] somewhere, we’re going to fight, 100 percent. It doesn’t matter if someone go to jail or something like this. I’m not scared about this. If someone has to go to jail, they go to jail.

"He said it's never going to be finished but who runs this show? We run this show. We smash his team . . they go to hospital and we’ll go to police. That’s it.”

Khabib continued that the feud will never be over because in his opinion McGregor started the entire series of events and he added that he had little time for the former featherweight champion's talk in the build up to their fight last year.

"He began this," added Nurmagomedov. "The UFC tried to promote it, all these kind of things, and I just stay relaxed and patient. I only think about the 6th of October. When the 6th of October comes I'm going to do what I have to do but just to talk, I don't like this. Just saying 'I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that'... okay. "If you want to do this shut up and go but I don't like talk 'I'm going to do this' etc. I just say 6th of October I'm going to do everything and when 6th of October came they can do nothing because on the 6th of October everything is finished. "You can't talk, you can do nothing, you have to show up and fight and everybody understands who is who."

Nurmagomedov will return to the Octagon to fight interim champion Dustin Poirier on September 7 at UFC 242 in Abu Dhabi.