Conor McGregor Could Reportedly Still Fight At UFC 200
With the collective mixed martial arts (MMA) world still trying to make sense of Conor McGregor‘s cryptic retirement tweet and subsequent removal from July’s massive UFC 200 card yesterday, UFC President Dana White appeared on ESPN’s ‘The Herd’ with Colin Cowherd today (Wed., April 20, 2016) to give his side of what transpired and what direction the UFC would now head:
The strange proceedings of the past few days would definitely suggest that McGregor and the UFC are at odds in a big way, but White insisted to Cowherd that simply wasn’t the case, insisting that things never got combative (quotes via MMA Fighting):
“It never got combative, and I was talking to his manager,” White said. “They were asking to move all this stuff to May, and you can’t move this. This stuff is in motion. All fans care about is the fights, and that’s all they should care about. Any fan of the UFC [knows] that this happened once before when I pulled Nick Diaz from the fight.
“Everyone likes to talk about how I coddle Conor, and I baby Conor, and Conor can do whatever he wants and all this stuff. No, no you can’t. We do give Conor a lot of leeway because Conor delivers. He wasn’t planning on delivering this weekend and I had to pull him. That’s what had to be done.”
“Our relationship isn’t damaged at all,” White said. “…I’m not even mad a little bit. I had pretty smooth day…. When Conor went out, 10 other people called asking to go in. It’s going to be a massive event. It’s still a big fight. No, I’m not mad at all.”
Finally, White admitted that if McGregor were to contact him today and clarify the situation, then all might be forgiven and he could still fight at UFC 200, even if he already said that Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar could fight for McGregor’s vacant featherweight belt on the card if ‘Notorious’ doesn’t give them a solid idea of his plans very soon.
The promotional machine for UFC 200 must roll on with millions having been spent, and White insisted McGregor is obviously an integral part of that, which makes his refusal to show up for the media event a non-negotiable obligation:
“Yeah, if he called me after this interview, we would probably still do it,” White said. “The problem with this whole thing is you have to be here to promote your fight and you have to shoot this commercial. We’re spending $10 million in promotion for UFC 200, and all that money is motion. You can’t do this. I don’t care who you are, or how big you are, you can’t do this.”
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