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:
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:
Via Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com, he added money wasn’t a factor:
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:
He added he had no choice:
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:
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.
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