Although there is plenty of excitement building towards the UFC lightweight championship clash between Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov, all of the talk still revolves around Conor McGregor.

This is because its widely expected that the winner of this contest will go on to face the Notorious, who hasn’t fought inside of the Octagon since his historic victory over Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 inside of Madison Square Garden.

HIATUS

Since then the lightweight division has moved on with El Cucuy claiming the interim lightweight championship with a victory over Kevin Lee, The Eagle picked up a dominating win over Edson Barboza and the Irishman lost out to Floyd Mayweather when he ventured into a boxing ring last year.

With the winner between Ferguson and Nurmagomedov being crowned the undisputed champion, McGregor’s training partner Artem Lobov has had his say on who McGregor should fight next. While he claimed that McGregor would fight either man, he’d like to see him fight the dangerous Dagestan native instead.

When speaking to BJ Penn Radio, Lobov said: “Conor, he doesn’t care who he fights. I think he has proved and shown that on a number of occasions. When [Jose] Aldo went running, [Chad] Mendes stepped in. That was a terrible matchup for Conor given the fact that he was coming off an ACL injury.

CONOR VS KHABIB

“When Rafael dos Anjos went running as well and Nate [Diaz] stepped in, he had no problem. And at the time as well, there was offers Aldo was being offered, but he didn’t want it. Frankie [Edgar] was offered the fight, and he didn’t want it also. Conor didn’t really care who was gonna step in. So he has shown that many times, and it’s the same thing in this case. Khabib or Tony, it doesn’t really matter to him.

“As for the fans, I feel that the fans probably would prefer Khabib matchup. They feel that’s a better fight and to be honest, I would really like to see that fight also. And especially if that fight was to take place in Russia, that would be crazy.

“That would be a raucous style matchup. That would be just incredible. So, I would love to see that, of course.”

McGregor’s camp seem to be pretty comfortable with the task of going to Russia, but it’s clear that both fighters will bring a tough challenge to McGregor - whenever he decides to return.

Who do you think Conor McGregor should fight on his return to the UFC? Have YOUR say in the comments section below.