Cowboy Cerrone: UFC 187 fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov isn't personal

Khabib Nurmagomedov has been doing his best to make his fight against Donald Cerrone -- which goes down at the UFC 187 pay-per-view (PPV) event on May 23, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada -- a personal one.

Unfortunately, it's not working.

That's according to "Cowboy," who says that despite all of the non-stop trash talk Khabib has been spitting his way, their 155-pound fight isn't personal at all, even though "The Eagle" may be getting under his skin just a little bit.

From his appearance on The MMA Hour:

"This isn't personal at all. It's not even a drop personal. He's trying, but it's not. It's funny to me, I appreciate that he's trying to build the fight up, I really do. But he's not really saying anything under the belt, trying to piss me off. I'm not mad, it's just like enough, everyday he's coming at me. But it's good. Mentally I am fine, I'm not worried about it. I get people telling me that I'm scared of Khabib. It's humorous to me as I've never been scared of an opponent in my life. Especially when I've been trying to fight him three times already."

Nurmagomedov has been calling Cerrone a fake cowboy, saying if anyone deserves that moniker, it's him (Khabib), because he really trains in the mountains and does all the things a real cowboy does. Something that didn't really bother Cerrone.

In fact, he likes it.

"I know he called me a fake cowboy and he's the Russian cowboy or whatever he is. That's fine, it makes no difference to me. He's trying to get a rise out of me, I don't care. If he thinks he's the real Russian cowboy, good I'm glad. I hope he trains really hard, chops wood, fights with bears and shows up to fight. That's all I can say. If it means pumping this fight up and getting the fans excited, and an extra $50,000 for me, then hell yeah. What do I need to do to do that? Let's do that."

And you know how much "Cowboy" loves his post-fight bonuses.

So now that Khabib knows his verbal warfare is all for naught, perhaps the Dagestani will ease up on the trash talk.

That, or he'll probably just keep slinging it in the direction of others.