'22yrs after the bear, I wrestle with a McChicken': Khabib throws dig at McGregor Down Under (VIDEO)

UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has thrown a dig at vanquished opponent Conor McGregor at an Australian Q&A, claiming that 22 years after wrestling with a bear in his youth, he wrestled a "chicken" in the Irishman.

Khabib was facing questions from fans in Melbourne, where the 2019 Australian Open is currently in full swing, when one mischievous young supporter asked about the famous video of him aged eight years old wrestling with a bear cub in his native Dagestan. 

The fan used his time on the microphone to ask his hero: "Other than the bear, how many animals have you fought?"

Realizing the tone of the question, Khabib paused and began his response: "After the bear... twenty-two years after, I wrestle with a McChicken burger," to rapturous applause and guffaws from the partisan crowd. 

Unbeaten champion Khabib has never ducked an opportunity to call McGregor a "chicken", dating back to when the Russian would call out the former featherweight and lightweight champion, a trait which has carried through to his current reign as champion.

Khabib, whose nickname is 'The Eagle', collected McGregor's old lightweight title last April and defended it against 'The Notorious', winning by fourth round submission at UFC 229 in Las Vegas in October.

He also referenced another of his well-known and more chilling catchphrases, revealing he had nothing left to say to McGregor while "changing his face" in that fight, insisting his advice to the fighter would be: "just 'be humble', that's it".

The pair engaged in a white-hot pre-fight war of words last year, in which brash brawler McGregor called accused Nurmagomedov of being a "rat", and of "disrespecting president Putin" and of taking a "s*** on the back of a bus".

However, Khabib is seemingly enjoying the last laugh, currently weighing up mega-money fights with big names such as MMA legend Georges St-Pierre, number one contender Tony Ferguson and boxing icon Floyd Mayweather, without a thought for McGregor.

Having reached the pinnacle of his sport with the UFC title win, Khabib profoundly offered some words of advice to his young fans in Melbourne to help them achieve their dreams, through "belief" and "patience".

"I just keep going, I never stop. You cannot stop," he said. If you have a dream, you have to move all the time. You have to move, you have to believe. Number one is patience. This is really important. You cannot be like panicking. Stay calm, stay relaxed and keep going."

Khabib has shown himself to be fond of getting involved in heated spats inside and outside the octagon, having recently become embroiled in a vulgar but entertaining back-and-forth with McGregor, Nate Diaz and Paulie Malignaggi, in which the pugilistic quartet swapped searing insults, Khabib himself telling McGregor he will like with the "shame" of his fourth round defeat for the rest of his life, and calling Diaz a "punk" and a "coward".