Why is Conor McGregor fight Donald Cerrone at UFC 246 and not Khabib Nurmagomedov?
Conor McGregor will make his return to the Octagon tonight.
This weekend will mark the long-awaited return to the Octagon of Conor McGregor. The Irishman’s eagerly-anticipated comeback fight will headline UFC 246, which will take place the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in the early hours of Sunday morning.
McGregor, 31, will be welcomed back to Ultimate Fighting Championship by future hall-of-famer Donald Cerrone, whom he’ll meet in a welterweight bout.
The former two-division champion’s showdown with ‘Cowboy’ will be his first outing since losing his UFC 229 grudge match with Khabib Nurmagomedov, his successor at the summit of the lightweight division.
McGregor suffered a fourth-round submission loss to the Russian, who sparked a mass brawl after registering the biggest win of his career by scaling the cage and attempting to attack his rival’s team-mate Dillon Danis.
Given the immense bad blood between the pair - a sure-fire recipe for a successful pay-per-view - many though the UFC brass would book an immediate rematch between the adversaries.
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He's trembling
The promotion, however, opted against doing so and booked Nurmagomedov against Dustin Poirier, whom the Russian recorded a third-round submission victory over at UFC 242.
Immediately after Nurmagomedov saw off Poirier, talk of a rematch with McGregor once again came to the fore.
So why aren’t the bitter rivals throwing down at the first UFC card of the year?
The answer: Because Nurmagomedov will defend his title against former interim lightweight king Tony Ferguson - whom he’ll meet in the main event of UFC 249 on April 18.
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The booking of Nurmagomedov vs Ferguson - which has fallen through a staggering four times - is a commendable one given how much money the promotion could make putting together a rematch between the lightweight king and McGregor.
McGregor, understandably, is eager to exact revenge on ‘The Eagle’ - who has gone on record saying the Dubliner must go on a ten-fight win streak to earn a rematch.
Somewhat surprisingly, McGregor has interpreted those comments as Nurmagomedov being scared to share the cage with him again, recently saying: "He is trembling.
"That man is trembling. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want it. You get it.
"He’s trying not to lose it again. I just smell s***. That’s all it is. He’s afraid, and that’s it."
"Everyone wants it. The boss wants it. Dana wants it. We all want it. He can run, but he cannot hide. I look forward to it.
"That [loss] was after a horrendous camp where I was so disrespectful to the people that believe in me.
"I was disrespectful to my team with my lack of commitment, and I still went out and done that."