UFC champion Rafael dos Anjos laughs off Conor McGregor’s lightweight title ambitions

A slap-down from the champ.

Conor McGregor is moving from featherweight to lightweight, sooner rather than later. The Irishman is targeting a UFC 189 win over featherweight champion Jose Aldo, in July, before defending the title in Croke Park later that year. If he achieves both goals, he is eager to shake his current division off in the hunt for bigger targets. Rafael dos Anjos, UFC's lightweight champion, has issued a warning to McGregor and dismissed the notion that he could be seriously challenged by the unbeaten [5-0] fighter. Dos Anjos told Submission Radio, 'If we are talking about Conor McGregor, one year ago nobody knew who he was. I did not know who McGregor was.' The Brazilian feels McGregor talks a lot - no surprise there - and needs to take care of business against his compatriot, Aldo, first. He added:

'Man, I don't know how this guy thinks that. He flatters himself too much. I don't see any way [McGregor could beat me]. 'I can stop the fight with him in my closed guard, I can stop [the fight] on bottom. Whatever position he wants. There's no way he can beat me. I don't see, like any way. 'He's a good fighter, but he needs to take care of the featherweight division first. Man, lightweight division is a shark tank, you know? He better stay in featherweight division.'

The jump to lightweight, where McGregor held a [CWFC] world title outside the UFC franchise, is a move the Dubliner wants to make sooner rather than later. In March, he told MMA Fighting, 'The featherweights beg for pardon, beg for forgiveness. If that’s the case, if they apologise and beg, I’ll leave the division. I won’t terrorise them anymore. They can have their division back. They can go back to being on the prelims and I’ll go to the lightweight division.' At the UFC world tour event in Dublin, earlier this month, McGregor also name-dropped 'RDA' as another Brazilian he would dethrone after he takes Jose Also's title.