Daniel Cormier knows Khabib Nurmagomedov very well after the two trained together for so many years. Recently, Charles Oliveira's rise as UFC lightweight champion has brought the Russian back into the conversation.

Daniel Cormier spoke about Khabib Nurmagomedov coming back and thinks the may answer may lie with Charles Oliveira. The former UFC champion would have a lot of money and a legacy fight to entice him to come back.

“Man, it’ll be nice to see him (Oliveira) fight Khabib, right?,” Cormier said on his ESPN show “DC & RC.” “Many people have said that, ‘It’ll be nice to know, it’ll be nice to know.’ What better way to try to draw him back in than by having Oliveira beat his friend, training partner and long time – it’s another way to try to draw him in because obviously the money, Dana’s throwing so much money at Khabib to try to get him back, that hasn’t been enough. But what if defending his friend’s honor is enough, if Islam doesn’t get the job done?”

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If Khabib Nurmagomedov doesn't return, then Islam Makhachev would be the next best thing. He really wants to return and face Charles Oliveira for the vacant UFC lightweight title.

“When it’s based on merit and you look at what he’s done, 10 fights in a row, beating Dan Hooker in the way that he did…everybody that he’s fought, he’s dominated and when we look at Charles Oliveira today, whoever Charles Oliveira is fighting he is dominating,” Cormier said. “So we want to see the best lightweights in the world fight each other, and I understand that he had one more step to cross in terms of Beneil Dariush, (but) Beneil Dariush is hurt right now.

“So I think it’s fast forward Islam Makhachev to the championship and make him versus Charles Oliveira, 11 wins in a row, 10 wins in a row and a tremendous matchup too because Islam is not going to be afraid to engage with Charles Oliveira in those spots that make Charles so dangerous. He’s going to wrestle him, he’s going to grapple with Charles and no one has really lived to speak of grappling with Charles.”