Dana White Teases McGregor vs. Pettis, Edgar vs. Aldo for FW Title
The Notorious One Conor McGregor hasn’t even made his debut at lightweight, and already UFC president Dana White is hyping future fights at 155 pounds…
UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor will eventuallydebut at lightweight with the toughest fight possible. Facing the champion Rafael dos Anjos, who is currently untouchable, in the UFC 197 main event,once the contract negotiations are finally hashed out. Having made mincemeat of Anthony Pettis and Donald Cerrone in his last two UFC appearances, the Brazilian champion now has a crack at smashing the featherweight champion making an excursion to the weight class he owns.
For ‘The Notorious’ it’s pretty much a win-win situation; he beats dos Anjos and becomes a legendary two weight UFC champ, he loses and the featherweight title is still intact. Frankie Edgar, however, is once again being left in the dark.
UFC president Dana White spoke to the Boston Herald this week, discussing potential future fights for McGregor at lightweight, and also explaining Frank Fertitta’s reaction to the UFC 194 main event. White had a response to Anthony Pettis‘ comments about being pushed back in the line for a lightweight title shot, check it out:
“It doesn’t matter, that (McGregor) decided to go to 155 and do that, it would still work out for Pettis,”
“If you’re Pettis, who would you want to fight? Wouldn’t you rather have a possibility of a fight with Conor? Imagine a Conor/Pettis fight. It would be ridiculous.”
Talk of McGregor being used as the cash train for the UFC, and thus being treated as a favorite, didn’t go down well with White, as he explains the Irishman’s journey to lightweight:
“Well, normally you’d say no, you’d give (the title) up or whatever. But Conor’s talking like, ‘I would defend both (belts) twice a year,’ ” White said. “And let me tell you what, Conor has always done what he says he would do, and the guy likes money, so . . . it’s not favoritism. This kid’s done literally everything he said he would do.”
“Frankie’s in there, you know,” White said. “Depends on what Conor does. Is Conor going to move to (1)55? Is he going to stay at (1)45? If he left and vacated, then him and — it would probably be Frankie vs. Jose (Aldo). We’ll see.”
It’s interesting that within the space of two sentences, Dana White says the reason McGregor is allowed to move up and challenge the lightweight champion is that he could defend both belts in the year, and then says he would be OK with ‘The Notorious’ staying at lightweight and vacating the featherweight belt afterwards. Sounds like a well laid out plan.
Finally Dana discusses the infamous moment that UFC CEO Fran Fertitta slammed down the belt at UFC 194 in the moments after Jose Aldo got knocked out:
“Frank Fertitta is a (expletive) moose, OK? He’ll flip tables over and everything else,” White said. “It wasn’t anything negative or positive. It was just his reaction to Jose Aldo getting knocked out in one punch, you know?”
Thans for clearing that one up DW.
Stay tuned.
