UFC president Dana White believes featherweight champion Conor McGregor isn’t retiring and will fight again for the organisation in the next year, and he said the decision to pull the Irishman from the UFC 200 card on July 9 was not based on money.
White added Frankie Edgar and Jose Aldo will fight for the featherweight title if McGregor doesn’t clarify his situation soon, and he left the door open for the Notorious to return to the UFC 200 card.
On Tuesday, McGregor shocked the world by sending out this tweet, apparently announcing his retirement:
I have decided to retire young.
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) April 19, 2016
Thanks for the cheese.
Catch ya's later.
While most fans dismissed it as a joke, it soon became clear McGregor wasn’t messing around. Several hours later, the UFC announced McGregor had been pulled from the UFC 200 card for failing to show up for a press conference, per Marc Raimondi of MMAFighting.com.
White appeared on The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Wednesday to discuss the ongoing saga. When asked whether he thinks McGregor is actually retiring, the UFC president gave a clear answer:
In the next year, will @TheNotoriousMMA fight in the @ufc? #TheHerdhttps://t.co/oIMDy70aM4
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) April 20, 2016
Via Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com, he added money wasn’t a factor:
Dana White on The Herd now. "Never, ever was this about money." He also says he thinks Conor will fight again this year.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) April 20, 2016
The organisation’s reasoning behind pulling McGregor from the UFC 200 card looks flimsy at best. The Notorious is arguably the organisation’s biggest and most marketable star, and unless something major happened, he needs to be on the card of the UFC’s biggest event in years.
Pulling him for missing a press conference in Las Vegas because he’s training in Iceland seems quite the overreaction, per Raimondi. But via MMA Latest, White highlighted this is something fighters are expected to do, and they usually deliver:
Dana: I'm not asking Conor to do something other fighters are doing.
— MMA Latest (@MMALatestNws) April 20, 2016
He added he had no choice:
"Conor delivers. But he wasn't planning on delivering this weekend, and I had to pull him. It's what had to be done," White said at the end.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) April 20, 2016
Per Helwani, White said he’s “not mad” at McGregor, but unless he can “clear up his status soon,” he will lose his featherweight title, and the scheduled bout between Aldo and Edgar at UFC 200 will be for the vacant belt.
He also left the door open for McGregor to change his mind and still fight at the event:
White adds that if McGregor called him today to clear the air they could figure it out re: 200.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) April 20, 2016
Here's a look at the full interview:
While this isn’t the first time a fighter has been pulled from a bout for failing to show up for a press event, the speed at which the UFC made the decision to drop McGregor months ahead of UFC 200 remains baffling.
Journalists like Charly Arnolt have suggested McGregor’s financial demands forced the UFC’s hands, but White vehemently denied that, via USA Today's Mike Bohn:
Others, like Brett Okamoto of ESPN, think the death of Joao Carvalho may have had an impact on McGregor's decision.
Per MMA Connect TV (via BJPenn.com), McGregor was present for the fight between him and Charlie Ward on April 9, and he even told reporters he thought the bout should have been stopped sooner, before he knew Carvalho was in such bad shape.
The Portuguese fighter was taken to a hospital after the bout, and he died two days later.
Whatever his reasons for not showing up may be, it seems all but certain McGregor won't fight at UFC 200.
Mookie Alexander of BloodyElbow.com couldn't help but think back to the controversy that arose between the organisation and former light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones when they had a falling out, but that isn't likely to happen this time around:
McGregor is still just 27 years old, and the UFC has every reason to keep the door open for their cash-cow to return.
We won't know what's truly going on behind the scenes or what the Notorious' plans are until we hear from the man himself, but White clearly believes this is but a minor bump in McGregor's UFC career and he'll return to the Octagon soon.
