Conor McGregor News: Tenshin Nasukawa responds to the Notorious One's challenge

What's the story?

Former UFC Lightweight and Featherweight Champion, 'The Notorious' Conor McGregor recently opened up about wanting to face Tenshin Nasukawa in an exhibition fight. Speculation was rife on social media about the possibility of such a fight. Nasukawa had recently fought Floyd 'Money' Mayweather in an exhibition bout, and although he had lost, the fight had attracted a lot of attention.

Tenshin Nasukawa has now responded to the challenge on social media, letting his feelings be known about a possible fight against the Notorious One.

In case you didn't know...

Tenshin Nasukawa recently faced Floyd 'Money' Mayweather in an extremely one-sided boxing bout under Rizin. Mayweather dominated the young and up and coming fighter, knocking him out in a matter of moments, almost playing with him in the ring.

Mayweather and McGregor have history, with the two of them facing off against each other in a boxing bout. After immense hype, McGregor impressed everyone by exceeding expectations and actually taking Mayweather to several rounds, and giving the legendary boxer a lot of competition.

He would lose as well, but ever since then he has been looking to get a rematch against him. A fight against Tenshin could be McGregor's way of telling Mayweather, 'Whatever you can do, I can do better.'

The heart of the matter

Tenshin Nasukawa sent an extremely obvious statement with his reply to McGregor's challenge on Instagram. There, he told McGregor that he was honoured that McGregor would even consider fighting him.

He said that if McGregor was willing to fight him at 58 kgs and Kickboxing Rules, then the fight could happen in the 'near future'.

View this post on Instagram

Dear Mr. McGregor. Thank you very much for remembering my name. I’m honored that you would even consider fighting me. 58kg, kickboxing rules would probably get us in the ring sometime in the near future 👍 I will fight my RISE world GP this year so please watch your diet and wait for me! #RISE #Cygames #RIZIN #kickboxing @thenotoriousmma

A post shared by 那須川天心 (@tenshin.nasukawa) on Jan 7, 2019 at 7:28am PST

Tenshin then went on to promote his upcoming RISE World GP fight, before telling McGregor to 'watch your diet' and wait for him.

This is an obvious refusal from Tenshin, because it's obvious that McGregor will have to lose a lot of weight to even attempt to face Tenshin at 58 kgs.

What's next?

Tenshin appears to have learnt from his experience with Floyd Mayweather and is no hurry to face a fighter who is clearly at a completely different level to him.

For now, McGregor will be looking to face the sanctions brought against him by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.