Conor McGregor has been told by UFC legend Henry Cejudo that he "went too far" in his trash talk towards Khabib Nurmagomedov, particularly with jabs towards his late father.
Nurmagomedov and McGregor have one of the ugliest and most bitter feuds in UFC history, with the pair's 2018 meeting ending in chaos after a brutal build-up. And despite the Russian comfortably winning their lightweight title bout, neither man has ever made up with the other and their rivalry is still heated.
And Cejudo feels that comments from McGregor that related to the passing of Nurmagomedov's father Abdulmanap were too much for him to ever forgive. The returning two-weight world champion has been coaching during his three years out of action, working with some of the greats of the sport before stepping back into the octagon this weekend.
But he told Mirror Fighting today that he couldn't ever train McGregor, saying: "I think he's offended too many of my good friends. At first, I was a kind of Conor hater, then I became a fan like 'this dude won me over'. But I think he took things too far by talking about Khabib's father after his passing.
"He called my manager [Ali Abdelaziz] a rat, a terrorist, to me I get sports and I get the entertainment side but that's just a little too much for me. But I've done a 'fight feedback' [his YouTube show] on him and if he was smart he'd watch that and adjust his stance because he's too heavy on that lead leg.
"He's not an attacker, Conor anticipates and he counters well, so start bringing people into you. Notice when he started getting a little too aggressive he started coming a bit too forward and people started to understand his bluff. He's throwing too much power and he needs to go back to his analogy of 'precision beats power, timing beats speed'."
Cejudo and McGregor have had their share of social media back-and-forth over the years, with the Irishman taking offence at the critiques his rival has made during posts online. And it appears that there is too much bad blood for the two sides to work out a chance to work together in future.
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"His distance is off right now, his positioning's off and he needs to go back to my 'fight feedback'," Cejudo advised. "He's responded to a lot of my stuff when I do breakdowns on him. I know he would like it but I just couldn't, man. I couldn't do that to him or Ali [Abdealaziz]."
McGregor's comments towards Nurmagomedov's father were wildly controversial, with one particular 'tweet-and-delete' message drawing the ire of the fight community. After his rival tweeted "Good always defeats evil," after McGregor was defeated in his trilogy bout with Conor McGregor, the Irishman wrote, "Covid is good and father is evil?"
Nurmagomedov's father passed away from heart complications in 2020 and had tested positive for coronavirus early in the pandemic. The Irishman took down his post, but it was seen by enough of his millions of followers to remain online forever, with his rival branding him "dirty" in the aftermath.
