There is no love lost between Conor McGregor and former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez.

UFC has announced that interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson would fight title contender Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 223.

As seen in the past, McGregor usually gets what he wants when he demands it. McGregor has not been seen in the world famous Octagon since last November at UFC 205 when he won the lightweight title from Eddie Alvarez.

McGregor then fought in a boxing match with boxing legend Floyd Mayweather in August of last year which saw Mayweather score TKO win.

UFC 223 is slated to take place on Saturday, April 7 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.

Alvarez recently appeared on The MMA Hour and gave his take on how the UFC should handle this situation.

“What’s going on is that this fight is 0 for 3. They’re not going to strip Conor of a belt and then have a vacant title for a fight that’s 0 for 3,” Alvarez said at the MMA Hour (transcript courtesy of Bloody Elbow).

“They have not been able to make this fight. Every time they book it, they’re not able to make the fight.

Either Khabib gets hurt, Tony gets hurt or someone gets hurt,” he said. “So I think what the UFC is thinking — and this is just a theory, an opinion on my point — is that this fight is not going to happen.

There’s a very unlikely chance that it’s going to happen, so they’re not going to strip the champion, then have this fight fall through and then not have a champion.”
“So I think the day of the weigh-ins, they’re going to strip (McGregor), it’s going to make real big news,” he said.

“And then they’re going to have a title fight, and that’s also going to make big news. So it’s going to make for a lot of publicity in one day. That’s my theory.”