Following the pretty surprising news Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier are going to fight for an interim lightweight title, the UFC’s champ, Khabib Nurmagomedov, has told Tony Ferguson not to complain…

Recently it was announced that Holloway and Poirier are going to battle for an interim belt at UFC 236, April 13th. The news caught a lot of folks by surprise. The consensus had been that if the UFC put up an interim belt, while Nurmagomedov serves out his suspension (and his teammates’) that Ferguson would be one of the competitors.

Well, recently Khabib directed these comments to “El Cucuy” via Instagram:

I want to remind you guys, that before I become champion, I was close to the title fight 3 times and all 3 times I missed my opportunity. First was in July 2016 when I was offered to fight in Ramadan month and I turned it down, second was UFC 205 NYC when I was offered a title fight, bout agreement signed, but my title was given away, you know the story.
Third time was UFC 209 where I was hospitalized and almost died.
But after every single fail I were said: you missed your chance, earn your shot with one more victory.
Tony you had your chance and you missed it, and that’s your fault only. You know that I’m disqualified and can’t fight, but it’s not fair to strip me off the title, I fought 3 times in 9 months. I won and defended my belt.
As a fighter you deserve a title fight, you are great fighter and opponent, but now you have to fight or wait for my DQ to be over and fight(but UFC doesn’t want it). I don’t understand your offenses, if you fell down, you got to get up, not complain.
#ufc #mma #ufclightweight

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I want to remind you guys, that before I become champion, I was close to the title fight 3 times and all 3 times I missed my opportunity. First was in July 2016 when I was offered to fight in Ramadan month and I turned it down, second was UFC 205 NYC when I was offered a title fight, bout agreement signed, but my title was given away, you know the story. Third time was UFC 209 where I was hospitalized and almost died. But after every single fail I were said: you missed your chance, earn your shot with one more victory. Tony you had your chance and you missed it, and that’s your fault only. You know that I’m disqualified and can’t fight, but it’s not fair to strip me off the title, I fought 3 times in 9 months. I won and defended my belt. As a fighter you deserve a title fight, you are great fighter and opponent, but now you have to fight or wait for my DQ to be over and fight(but UFC doesn’t want it). I don’t understand your offenses, if you fell down, you got to get up, not complain. #ufc #mma #ufclightweight

A post shared by Khabib Nurmagomedov (@khabib_nurmagomedov) on

So, it’s going to be really interesting to see what happens with Ferguson next. Dana White has claimed the former interim champ turned down the UFC 236 fight, and recently Ferguson posted he had been offered a bout, but that he wasn’t sure if it met his “standards”. 

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