Former UFC heavyweight Oleg Taktarov has appeared to backtrack after suggestions he labelled countryman and current lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov a "Wahhabi."
Taktarov was recently angered by the suggestion that Khabib was Russia's first UFC champion, himself laying claim to that honor having won an eight-man tournament at UFC 6 in 1995.
“If one Wahhabi from the Tsumadinsky district [in Dagestan] said it [that Khabib is Russia's first UFC champion], then why do all the fools believe it?
"[Khabib] himself doesn’t repeat such a thing, but you repeat it like monkeys,” fumed Taktarov, 52.
Also on rt.com 'If one Wahhabi called him the first champ, why do fools believe it?' Ex-UFC star Taktarov questions Khabib's credentialsThat led to suggestions that the Russian former MMA star-turned-Hollywood actor was linking devout Muslim Khabib himself to the radical branch of Islam - although Taktarov played down that notion in a fiery rebuttal in a new Instagram chat with fans.
"I have a student who in his time listened to five pieces of advice from me, became a champion and is still one to this day," he said, appearing to suggest Khabib was the student in question.
"When I talked about a Wahhabi from the Tsumadinsky district [in Dagestan] - I know how many people are there at the moment - then the particular person I was talking about officially stopped being a Wahhabi.
"I know everything, I have friends in special government departments. I'm not insulting anyone, I'm simply speaking the truth.
"Someone asked me and I answered, it's my opinion, I'm not ashamed. [But] for me it's not very pleasant when someone tries to set up my student."
Taktarov even suggested that someone within the Khabib camp could be attempting to stir up trouble between the pair.
"I suddenly realized that someone who's jealous, who might even be training with him, started this beef," he said.
"Khabib himself didn't say that I wasn't the champion, he just said he doesn't see me...
"We still write to each other, we have good communication, we were friends and still are.
"Now they'll say, 'Look, Taktarov showed weakness. I don't have any weaknesses, I only have the truth."
He added: "Gentlemen provocateurs, I will not allow my diligent student to be offended by calling him a Wahhabi.
"They called the guy a Wahhabi, at first I didn’t understand what they were writing to me, and then I realized that they decided to set him up.
"How did you get the knowledge he was a Wahhabi, I don't understand."
Taktarov has enjoyed mixed relations with the Khabib camp, appearing to criticize his style and take a swipe at the UFC lightweight champ's father and trainer Abdulmanap ahead of the bout against Conor McGregor in 2018.
“He’s a typical highlander,” Taktarov said at the time. “When the army comes, they hide somewhere.”
He later cleared the air by claiming he was not talking about people from Dagestan, and was even invited to visit the Nurmagomedov family a month later.
But despite having appeared to bury the hatchet, tensions rose again the following April when Taktarov called the invitation “insincere” and Khabib unfollowed him on the social media platform.
Last August, Taktarov accused Abdulmanap of appearing “like a great magician” to “decide that I wasn’t the first champion.”
“He says that technically I’m not the first and I should be forgotten, wiped from history,” he said. “How can you ever say this?”