The UFC is headed to Abu Dhabi with UFC 242 on September 7, and a number of top Russian fighters are expected to compete on the card. Khabib Nurmagomedov is rumored to be defending his undisputed lightweight title against Dustin Poirier in the main event, while other stars like Islam Makhachev, Zubaira Tukhugov and Mairbek Taisumov are reportedly in talks to join the card.

Former UFC lightweight and featherweight champ Conor McGregor has some pretty incendiary opinions about several of these fighters.

On Sunday, the Twitter account MMA Team Dagestan listed off a number of the fighters expected to compete at UFC 242.

This Tweet generated a response from Conor McGregor, who reminded that several fighters on that list have tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in the past.

“Team Meldonium. 3 on this list caught on performance enhancers in the past already. Islam, zubaira and Mairbek. Dirty smelly rats all of them.” – Conor McGregor on Twitter.

McGregor has history with several of these fighters, having fought Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 in October, and brawled with several of the champion’s training partners after the fight had ended. All the parties involved in this unfortunate post-fight skirmish were handed suspensions and fines of varying severities.

Since then, McGregor and Nurmagomedov have exchanged quite a bit of trash talk on Twitter — some of which was widely considered over the top, crossing racial, religious and familial lines.

UFC President Dana White even vowed to handle the matter internally.

“I’m aware of the recent social media exchange between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor,” he stated. “The ongoing situation has escalated to a level that is unacceptable. As such, we are taking the necessary steps to reach out to both athlete camps and this situation is being addressed by all parties internally.”

What do you think of this comment from Conor McGregor?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 5/6/2019.