UFC bantamweight champion Petr Yan has offered a short and scathing assessment of Conor McGregor's defeat at UFC 257 to Dustin Poirier, whose wife has been seen meeting the Irishman in his dressing room after her husband beat him.
Russian star Yan drew a curt conclusion when he was asked about McGregor's surprise defeat to former victim Poirier on "Fight Island" last week, criticizing the beaten braggart's physical conditioning and longevity after his second-round knockout loss.
Speaking from Florida, where he is preparing at martial arts epicenter American Top Team for his much-anticipated defense against Aljamain Sterling on March 6, Yan declared to Fanatics View: "I saw that McGregor became fat and old."
At 32, McGregor could conceivably have years of fights ahead of him - and "Notorious" looked ripped ahead of his unsuccessful rematch with Poirier, with only his badly injured leg appearing to cause him concern in footage showing him receiving a visit from his opponent's wildly supportive wife after the bout.
"Thank you so much," a smiling McGregor graciously told Jolie Poirier. "Congratulations - he fought an amazing fight."
Poirier was intent on applauding McGregor for his $500,000 donation to her husband's charity, The Good Fight Foundation.
"I just wanted to say thank you for everything," she told him. "You're going to help change a lot of people's lives."
In the immediate aftermath of Poirier's revenge for his 2014 defeat to McGregor, Jolie was off her ringside seat.
"I swear to god," she cheered. "That's the last time you're going to doubt my husband."
Yan has taken a leaf out of McGregor's book by taunting his next opponent. "Let him know that when he was lifting, I was already fighting," he jibed at Sterling, continuing an acerbic exchange that has blazed on Twitter.
"We have a date now and, for sure, we're going to meet. You can say we have opposing styles.
"My goal is to break him. I have a lot of partners here with whom I wrestle, grapple, spar."
Yan said a win over Sterling could allow him to target former champion TJ Dillashaw, adding that "anything is possible" when he was asked the inevitable question about lightweight king Khabib Nurmagomedov's potential return from retirement.
Reporting on life in the US, Yan said: "Most of the time we're hitting the beach, visiting some local landmarks - but most of the time it's just relaxing, swimming, training on the beach."
When Sterling suggested on social media that he had struggled to find a place to train earlier this month, Yan fired back: "Don’t worry about me, worry about your ass. I trained for a title fight in the garage, nothing special about it."
After his latest interview, Yan also asked Sterling: "Hey, big mouth - why you went quiet recently?
"Don’t worry, I’m not going to beat you up too hard. I will put you to sleep nicely - you won’t even realize what happened."
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