Kevin Lee is a few days away from fighting Tony Ferguson for the vacant UFC Interim Lightweight Championship at UFC 216.
A title win could mean a title unification bout with UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor, a fight Lee is willing to take on his terms.
“It will be on my terms,” Lee said at a media scrum. “It will be on my timetable. You know, I’m expecting to take this fight. I’m doing the hard work. I’m doing the heavy lifting. I’m fighting Tony. Nobody wanted to fight Tony. Conor didn’t want to fight Tony. It will be on my timetable, I’ll tell him when we gonna fight. If we fight on St. Patrick’s Day? Maybe. That might make some good business so I don’t know, I’ll see.”
McGregor has yet to actually defend the lightweight title, a title he won about a year ago when he defeated Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205. Lee would even go as far as to say that the UFC Lightweight Champion has lost three of his last four fights.
“As far as I’m concerned, the man has lost three of his last four fights. I don’t even think he beat Nate Diaz the second time,” Lee said. “I like a big challenge, so he’s gotta show me a little bit. He’s a small dude, too, he’s 145. He was getting out-wrestled by a dude who’s 40 years old and a boxer. He was getting him in the clinches and out-wrestling him. I mean, he was, he’s gotta show a little bit more than that to me. So after this one, maybe I might give him a shot at the title. Maybe, I don’t know. We’ll see how he kind of reacts. Maybe he should fight Nate again and prove that he can fight me.”
UFC 216 takes place on Saturday, October 7 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Tony Ferguson and Kevin Lee headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
