UFC 209 media call gets heated between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson

Tempers flared between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson ahead of their highly anticipated UFC 209 interim lightweight championship match.

The two fighters along with the show's main event fighters, welterweight champion Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson were taking part in a UFC media conference call, answering questions from various media outlets.

However, it was Nurmagomedov and Ferguson who took over most of the call with insults at each other and heated exchanges.

The Russian first claimed that Ferguson had never fought a wrestler like him to which "El Cucuy" responded, mentioning that Nurmagomedov lost to Gleison Tibau.

"Your first fight, you lost to him [Tibau] – I beat him in the first round," Ferguson said. "You ain't breaking s**t. You keep talking."

Nurmagomedov responded that he beat Michael Johnson, someone who beat Ferguson — albeit with the latter suffering a broken arm in the fight.

"You said Michael Johnson was going to kill me," the 28-year-old responded. "What happened? I finished him. I could have finished him in the first round. I could have finished him in the second round."

Ferguson then went on to take another jab at "The Eagle", telling him to focus on making weight.

"You're fat, dude," Ferguson said. "You'll never make weight, and your conditioning sucks."

The 33-year-old also claimed he will make Nurmagomedov suffer in the octagon.

"Look man, if somebody doesn't piss me off, I'll finish them in the first round," Ferguson added. "This dude pissed me off. I'm going to drag him into deep waters and make him deal with the hammerhead."

The topic then changed to how Nurmagomedov made this fight happen and at one point, had to offer to pay Ferguson on the UFC's behalf.

"When you UFC asks me, 'Khabib, you have to fight with Tony,' I said okay, let's go," Nurmagomedov explained. "This is what I want, because you have nine win streak, I have eight win streak, we have to fight. And after UFC asked me, you said, 'please, please, give me money, give me this.' You tried to run."

"Oh, there's no f*****g please, please," Ferguson responded. "Dude, it's what I've earned. You can talk as much s**t. Like I said, your management speaks for you. And you know what? I don't give two f***s.

"Try to hype it up. You were trying to f*****g pay me. I said, you know what? I spit on your money. Your money is f*****g worthless to me. I can give two f***s. I want the UFC's money because I earned it."

"You know why you ask for too much money?" Nurmagomedov interjected. "Because you know this is your last fight. This is your last fight in UFC. That's why. We'll see March 4th. I'm going to break your face. I'm going to break your career."

UFC 209 takes place on 4 March at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.