Dana White Conor Is Absolutely Fighting Again
LAS VEGAS – It's been more than three months since Conor McGregor last fought, and nearly 13 months since he concluding set foot inside the Octagon.
UFC president Dana White admitted Tuesday in a small gathering with reporters that he's non sure when – or, significantly, if – the lightweight champion will fight again.
White said he knew nothing about reports in Ireland that McGregor was involved in a brawl in a pub in Dublin on Lord's day. One of the men McGregor is alleged to have punched is a man with ties to the leader of a drug cartel in Ireland.
McGregor couldn't be reached for comment and his director, Audie Attar, failed to reply to messages. White said he hasn't spoken with McGregor, simply was betting the reports are erroneous.
"No, [I don't know anything about it], only I don't think information technology's true," White said. "Conor can walk down the street and information technology'due south big news at present. If this is true, I just take to believe it would be off-the-charts crazy."
White said he was trying to put together a fight involving McGregor for UFC 219, which will exist held at T-Mobile Arena on Dec. 30. Because of his deportment earlier this calendar month at a Bellator event – in which McGregor jumped into the muzzle during a fight, shoved the referee and slapped a Bellator employee – White said McGregor now won't fight on that show as penalization.
Attar had previously denied McGregor was going to fight on the Dec. 30 bear witness, saying his attention had always been focused on returning to the cage in the first quarter of 2018.
White admitted that he's not and then certain whether McGregor, who reportedly earned in excess of $100 meg to fight Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match on Aug. 26, will always compete again.
"Listen, Conor might never fight once again," White said as he was discussing the McGregor-Bellator incident. "He made $100 [expletive] million. I've got guys who fabricated less than that who are lawyers and went to school their whole lives and quit working. When you go to schoolhouse your whole life to be a lawyer, and you're a good lawyer, and you make a few bucks and yous're done? The guy's sitting home every day watching cartoons or whatever he's doing. I don't know.
"[Ex-UFC matchmaker] Joe Silva doesn't work any more than. These guys make coin and that's it. Fighting is the worst. Fighting is the worst. Effort to go upwards and get punched in the face every day when you have $100 meg in the banking concern. Money changes everything with a lot of people."
White stressed that he likes McGregor and said the UFC is negotiating a new contract with him. McGregor has frequently said he wants equity in the visitor in his next contract, and then White was asked most that.
While he said McGregor deserves to be richly paid, he stopped curt of saying he deserved to be given a share of the visitor. He invoked NBA legend Michael Jordan's proper noun in his unproblematic response.
"Did Jordan go points?" White asked, chuckling. He said, though, that "Conor tin can't exist paid enough money. He's worth every penny and more than."
White said he had been speaking with McGregor's representatives nearly a new deal. But he said he's non trying to force McGregor to fight if he doesn't want to any longer.
The fight business organisation is different than others, White said, and it'south useless trying to urge someone to fight whose heart isn't in information technology.
"Everybody always says to me, 'You have to want this guy to fight. You've got to want this guy to fight,' " White said. "I don't want anybody to fight unless they desire to fight. This isn't a business where you can just make people fight. You either want it or you don't. That was my big thing with [Georges St-Pierre]. He wasn't interim like a guy who really wants it. At the cease of the twenty-four hour period, I'm going to run this business with or without anybody.
"If Conor wants to fight again, absolutely we want Conor to come fight. But if Conor walks away and doesn't ever desire to fight again, information technology's function of the game."
White said McGregor needs to defend his lightweight championship. He won it on Nov. 4, 2016, but hasn't fought in MMA since. He also won the UFC featherweight title in 2015 just never defended that.
White said the status of the championship needs to be determined, but said he's non giving McGregor an ultimatum at this point.
"Correct now with him, it's not about defend or vacate," White said. "We're working on a new deal right now with him. Nosotros've got to work out this new deal."
White said he didn't wait any more than disciplinary action against McGregor as a effect of the Bellator incident. He did express concern about the large entourage that McGregor has gathered and compared that to his concerns well-nigh ex-UFC low-cal heavyweight champion Jon Jones when Jones first won the belt.
White referred to the hangers on as "Klingons," and said they're about always problem. He said it is especially truthful for McGregor in Republic of ireland, where his fame has reached unprecedented heights.
"The other matter with the Bellator thing, he'southward a immature rich kid who is a god in Ireland," White said. "That's not the healthiest environs either. I don't know if yous remember in the showtime with Jon Jones. I'd go, 'There was no doubt the guy's talented, but he's young and rich and he's the king of the world at present. Hopefully he can keep information technology together.' That was way earlier whatever of the crazy [stuff] started happening. And there it is, and information technology happens.
"What's weird is that it happens more in this sport than in whatever other business concern, in the fighting sports. The 'Klingons' are the ones who elevate you down, and Conor's got a lot, too. When he travels, he's got people for days with him. When yous make that kind of coin and you're that famous, you lot're going to have an overload of 'Klingons.' "
More from Yahoo Sports:
• Curry dedicated past married woman afterward apparent fan snub
• Trump once again hammers NFL: 'American public is fed upwardly'
• Abdul-Jabbar: LiAngelo Ball stained my legacy
• NFL comes down difficult on two of its star players
Source: https://sports.yahoo.com/dana-white-conor-mcgregor-might-never-fight-230859724.html
0 Response to "Dana White Conor Is Absolutely Fighting Again"
Post a Comment