"He mauled him" - Khabib Nurmagomedov claims Dustin Poirier has proven he's a better fighter than Conor McGregor

Khabib Nurmagomedov believes Dustin Poirier would have gone on to stop Conor McGregor once again had the Irishman not broken his leg at UFC 264. According to Nurmagomedov, Poirier simply mauled McGregor in the first round of the fight, and we'd have seen more of the same had the fight gone on beyond the first.

In an interview with ESPN's Brett Okamoto, Khabib Nurmagomedov claimed that if McGregor and Poirier fight each other 100 times, 'Diamond' will emerge victorious on every single occasion.

'The Eagle' also feels that Conor McGregor is not an elite fighter anymore.

According to Nurmagomedov, the UFC can only book the Irishman against Nate Diaz going forward unless they schedule a fourth contest with Poirier. The outcome of both fights, however, would not be in McGregor's favor, says Nurmagomedov.

"He had chance like second fight, Abu Dhabi, here, nothing happened. Like what's going to happen? Judges gave for Dustin Poirier like 10-8. He like mauled him in this round. I think if they fight 100 times, Dustin going to beat him 100 times. If you want to come back okay, make him fight one more time with Dustin Poirier and finish this guy, that's it. What UFC gonna do with him? or maybe make him fight Nate Diaz, okay. But both of them, I think he's gonna lose."

A few clips from today’s interview with Khabib Nurmagomedov (@TeamKhabib). We covered a lot of ground, some of which, of course, included Conor McGregor’s last week/weekend. pic.twitter.com/8LtJKHV95Q

— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) July 13, 2021

Khabib doesn't believe the #UFC264 main event would have gone any differently in Round 2.(via @bokamotoESPN) pic.twitter.com/fhCwWuN5k6

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) July 13, 2021

Trash talk led to Conor McGregor's downfall at UFC 264, says Khabib Nurmagomedov

Khabib Nurmagomedov believes all the trash talk in the build-up to UFC 264 was detrimental to Conor McGregor's ultimate goal of winning the fight. According to Khabib, the Irishman wasted precious energy trying to get inside his opponent's head and ended up losing focus from the fight.

Khabib Nurmagomedov also pointed out that McGregor's trash talk seemed fake and didn't affect Poirier because just a few months ago, they were on good terms. After 'Notorious' was knocked out in their rematch, he suddenly chose to be hostile to Poirier again.

"Sounds like same thing that Dustin said, it sounds like noise, you know. He is not him you know, I think he tried to... it was fake Conor in my opinion. Because couple months ago we see how he was nice and now... It looks fake, you know, that's why this trash talk don't work on Dustin Poirier and my opinion, it was his big mistake. He lose so much energy because he tried to get under his skin. Don't lose energy because why you have to focus on your opponent? Focus on yourself."