UFC 223 on April 7 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York will see Tony Ferguson fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov for the UFC Lightweight Championship despite the fact Conor McGregor is still the Lightweight Champion.

The reason why Khabib and Ferguson will be fighting for the lightweight title and not McGregor is due to the Irishman's inactivity in the division since he won the championship against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205.

While there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Notorious with UFC, The Eagle believes that he should stay away from the Octagon in 2018. Out of all the fighters signed with UFC, he might be the only one who isn't begging for a fight against the two-division UFC champion.

Nurmagomedov to Yahoo Sports' via MMA Weekly: "I don't know why they talk about this. A lot of people call him like a king, but he's not like a king. He's now Burger King. Now he's Burger King. He has money, he has good life, he’s a famous guy.

"I think it’s better for him if he stay away from good fighters in the lightweight division. For me, too, because when you go to the cage with me it’s not like you’re going to cage with Burger King. This is different. That’s why he has to stay away."

He continued: "He has money, he's already the UFC champ, he's a two-division champ, everything is good. Stay away. This is not a Burger King's sport. This is for real fighters."

Khabib also believes that McGregor isn't going to come back to the UFC for a simple fight to get back into the lightweight title picture. Instead, he believes the Irishman will only come back for a fight that suits his strengths inside the Octagon.

Nurmagomedov said on McGregor: “I don’t think he’s going to come back and fight real fight. I think he wants easy fights like when he fights [Floyd] Mayweather. He don’t need to come back preparing for five rounds, versus tough wrestling guy who is going to take you down and smash your face. He has to look nice to promote something like Burger [King] or other businesses. He has to look nice.

“Why does he have to come back for somebody to smash his face? Stay away from this. This is the UFC, baby.”

Many UFC fans have said they would love to see Khabib vs McGregor inside the Octagon in the future. If the Russian claims the lightweight title next month, UFC might finally book the fight before the end of the year.