CONOR McGREGOR has fans calling Donald Cerrone a “dead man walking” after he showed off his new ripped welterweight physique.

Irish superstar McGregor, 31, marks his return to the octagon by facing Cerrone on January 18 as he fights for the first time since losing to Khabib Nurmagomedov in October 2018.

Despite plotting a rematch against lightweight king Nurmagomedov, The Notorious has been allowed to skip a gruelling weight cut and come back at 170lbs.

After showing supporters online his beefed up frame, American veteran ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, 36, has been warned "the king is back".

One commented: "Gonna rip Cowboy apart."

Another said: "The king is back."

One wrote: "Cowboy is a dead man walking."

Many thought McGregor moved to welterweight in order to fight fan-favourite Jorge Masvidal – who in November won the brand new ‘Baddest Mother F***er’ belt against Nate Diaz.

But the Dublin southpaw has kept fans, and Masvidal, guessing as he claimed he would fight ‘Gambred’ but would rather challenge for Kamaru Usman’s welterweight title than the BMF belt.

Whether McGregor sticks around at 170lbs or moves back down to lightweight, Masvidal predicted he will come out on top against Cerrone and secure his first win in over three years.

He told ESPN: “It can go many ways – Conor is great off the block. He’s phenomenal off the start. Cowboy is a slow starter.

“Conor has tremendous speed and timing in the beginning, good power, so I think he can catch him early.

“If Cowboy comes out to grapple like he has in the past with decent strikers and even good grapplers like Rick Story, who he was able to take down and create a lot of offense like that – if that Cowboy comes out, he can mix things up real nice.

“And then he can start to flow and get into his game of high kicks and punching and being tricky, like a dual threat to Conor.

“If (Cerrone) just comes out to fight it out, I see Conor winning within the first two rounds.”

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