A fight between McGregor and Nurmagomedov, which many in the mixed martial arts world are eager to see, is within touching distance.
Should Nurmagomedov get past Tony Ferguson in the main event of UFC 223, he will put himself in pole position to welcome the Irishman back to the Octagon.
McGregor has publicly entertained the idea of fighting Nurmagomedov in Russia, but Abdelaziz isn’t buying what ‘The Notorious’ is selling.
“The f***er is afraid,” Abdelaziz told Yahoo Sport’s Kevin Iole. “He’s afraid of one man. He’s afraid of Khabib Nurmagomedov.
“Conor is very smart. I’m going to give him that. He only takes fights he has 80 percent chance of winning.
“The 20 percent chance is a lucky punch. You understand?
“Conor McGregor, his coaches, none of these guys want to see this Eagle.”
Abdelaziz is of the belief that the UFC brass have protected McGregor for years and don’t want to see him take on Nurmagomedov, a notion many fans agree with.
“Dana (White) said, I love Dana and I have an amazing relationship with him, but I don’t think Dana wants to see it [either],” he added.
“The whole thing is this: If Khabib goes out there and demolishes him, and that’s what’s going to happen, this whole Conor thing is gone.
“All the aura, all the prediction [expletive] is gone. There’s no more Conor. There’s no more 2 million pay-per-view buys.
“There’s no more Floyd Mayweather rematch. They can make all these rematches, but they’re not going to do the big numbers because they know, man. They’re smart.
“But look, Conor is scared. He’s nervous. Why would you want to fight a guy who is going to eat your soul?”
McGregor, 29, hasn’t set foot inside the Octagon since his historic UFC 205 victory over Eddie Alvarez, a triumph which saw him become the promotion’s first simultaneous two-weight world champion.
UFC president Dana White is hopeful of having the Dubliner back in the cage by the end of the summer, recently telling the BBC: “Hopefully we’ll see him back in either August or September.
“Well we’ve got to see how things play out in that [lightweight] division.”
