UFC: Conor McGregor on standby to face Khabib if Tony Ferguson fight falls through

Conor McGregor wants to be on standby to face Khabib Nurmagomedov if the Tony Ferguson fight falls through for the fifth time, Dana White has said.

No 1 contender Ferguson is set to face lightweight champion Khabib at UFC 249 in April at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, though injury issues and weight cut problems have scuppered the fight on four occasions since 2015.

Former featherweight and lightweight champ McGregor is returning to the Octagon on January 18 to face Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone at welterweight. He believes not having to cut weight this month could help facilitate an immediate turnaround to rematch Khabib if the opportunity arises.

“[The fight is at 170 pounds] because Conor wants to fight three times this year, and he’s hoping if he beats Cowboy he can turn right around and fight Khabib,” UFC president White told ESPN’s Brett Okamoto.

“But that timing and math isn’t gonna work out. But you know Conor, Conor thinks the way Conor thinks, so his thing is, ‘I’ll fight Cowboy, I’ll beat Cowboy and I’ll be ready to fight Khabib at 155 if anything happens’.

“Because we’re going into Khabib-Tony again, you know what I mean, so in Conor’s mind, Conor would be ready for that fight.”

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White stressed, however, that nobody should be getting ahead of themselves, until UFC 246 is done and dusted.

“We’re getting through this one first, we’ll get through the Cowboy fight,” he said. “The level of disrespect shown to Cowboy through this whole thing, apparently people forgot.

“Cowboy’s lost two in a row. He’s lost two in a row before and gone on unbelievable runs. So let’s not count Cowboy out.”