"It's part of the sport" - UFC bantamweight Gustavo Lopez weighs in on Khabib Nurmagomedov's comments about ring girls

UFC bantamweight prospect Gustavo Lopez has revealed his thoughts on the recent comments made by former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in regards to ring girls in MMA.

In a recent interview originally conducted in Russian, which was later translated by Twitter user '@manny_mma_', Khabib stated that:

“Ring girls are the most unnecessary people in mma, what function to they bring? You turn on the tv and you see it’s the second, why are they walking there.”

“Ring girls are the most unnecessary people in mma, what function to they bring? You turn on the tv and you see it’s the second, why are they walking there” pic.twitter.com/q0uWDk7J1F

— Manolo 🥃 (@manny_mma_) August 23, 2021

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda MMA's John Hyon Ko, Gustavo Lopez reacted to Nurmagomedov's comments.

"It's part of the sport, man. I feel like it's part of the sport. I feel like people enjoy it. It doesn't effect me. Doesn't effect me one way or the other. When I'm in the fight, fighting, it doesn't affect me at all. When I'm coming out as a fan, looking in... It's part of it. It's nice to have attractive women out there just to, you know, do the ring girl thing... It's something that people get attracted to and be able to come and watch the fights for it."

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Gustavo Lopez on his upcoming fight with Alateng Heili

Gustavo Lopez is currently preparing for his fourth fight in the UFC. He is coming off a hard fought loss against a top prospect in Adrian Yanez and will be hoping to breathe new life into his UFC career.

Gustavo Lopez takes on Alateng Heili at UFC Vegas 37. Speaking to Sportskeeda, he had the following to say about his upcoming opponent:

"I love that he's a wrestler that wants to come forward and fight. So with my last opponent, we expected him to come forward but he kind of just waited and kind of just picked me apart and just picked his shots. I was feinting and wasn't going, feinting, no reaction... So this fight, we're just gonna put pressure on people, do the things I did before to get into the UFC."

The two men compete on September 18 on a card headlined by a light heavyweight clash between Anthony Smith and Ryan Spann.

Check out our full interview with Gustavo Lopez below: