Kevin Lee offered his opinion on all the top lightweights in the UFC recently, including champion Conor McGregor…

When the official UFC rankings are finally reshuffled in the wake of this past weekend’s UFC Fight Night 112 event in Oklahoma City, the lightweight top 10 will feature a new name.

There may have been a degree of controversy surrounding the finish of the fight, but Kevin Lee’s submission victory over the 155-pound division’s sixth-ranked fighter Michael Chiesa will catapult him from the number 11 spot, which he previously occupied, into a much cushier seat closer to the top table. How far into the top 10 he will actually fly is hard to tell, but somewhere between 7 and 9 seems about right for ‘The Motown Phenom’, who has now scored five consecutive wins and four straight finishes.

While his impressive performances have been grabbing plenty of attention, the Michigan native has also been generating a lot talk with his cocky antics and utterances outside of the cage, something which will certainly aid his progression.

After strangling Chiesa just enough to draw an intervention from referee Mario Yamasaki, Lee called out number one contender Khabib Nurmagomedov in the octagon. Later, on Fox Sports 1, he also got into it with the man that sits second in the rankings at present, Tony Ferguson, who was making his debut as an analyst. Just a couple of days later, a video of Lee and Ferguson’s little spat has over 200,000 views on the FS1 YouTube channel. This, despite the fact that it already aired on cable TV in the U.S and that clips were distributed widely via Twitter.

And Lee just keeps talking.

During an appearance on the Slip ‘n Dip podcast on Tuesday, Lee was asked to explain exactly how and why he would beat each fighter ranked in the top 10, something that he had threatened to do during a post-fight media scrum in Oklahoma. The brash 24-year-old was more than happy to oblige.

Lee tended to be much harsher in his assessment of the bigger names. While he showed some respect to the likes of Beneil Dariush, Dustin Poirier, and Edson Barboza, who he admitted was a “tough one”, he called Nate Diaz “easy money”, Eddie Alvarez “washed up” and accused Tony Ferguson of having all the defensive guile of “Homer Simpson”. He did reserve some respect for the aforementioned Nurmagomedov, giving him credit for having “some of the best ground and pound in MMA”. But he added that Khabib is “slow”.

Most notable, though, was his claim that champion Conor McGregor, who authored arguably his most impressive display to date when he dismantled Eddie Alvarez last November, is on the slide.

“I think honestly he’ll be on the decline when he comes back[after the Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight]. He’s been on the decline for a minute. I think he’ll be on the decline, even more, when he comes back,” Lee said. “His skill set is starting to stagnate. You just put the pressure on him. Keep the pressure on him. He’s too small to hang with us 55’ers. Guys like me and Chiesa, a lot of these guys I fought, you know? Francisco Trinaldo is bigger than me, you know what I mean? Right now I’m sitting here at 185, 189 pounds. I think you put the pressure on him and take him down, and he’s out of his world. He’s gonna sit there and lose guard. Come on(Transcription via FanSided).”

McGregor has been focusing solely on boxing in recent months, as he prepares to make his professional boxing debut against one of the greatest boxers of all time on August 26th. However, according to McGregor’s trainer John Kavanagh, ‘The Notorious’ Irishman plans to return to the octagon in December of this year.

If Lee continues to win in impressive fashion and drum up interest with his incessant trash-talk, he might yet share the cage with the McGregor before the Dubliner’s career comes to a close.

You can watch the entire interview with Kevin Lee below. His breakdown of the top 10 begins shortly after the 23-minute mark.

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