UFC President Dana White stated Wednesday that he's worked to repair his relationship with Conor McGregor after a period of verbal warfare that led to a brief retirement for one of the promotion's biggest draws, who now won't appear on the UFC 200 card.
MMA Junkie passed along comments White made about the situation during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show. He even pointed out they are planning to meet in the near future.
"Conor and I have been talking every day," White said. "We're going to have dinner next week. Our relationship is great, and we're going to put the little speed bump in the road that happened there behind us and move forward. So everything is great."
He added: "He will not be on (UFC) 200. We're going to get together next week and see what card he's going to be on. We're going to get together next week and see what's next."
The ordeal began last month when McGregor posted a cryptic tweet about potentially walking away from the sport for good, which set the sports world abuzz:
White later explained they had a disagreement about the Irishman making his way to Las Vegas to help promote UFC 200, per Brett Okamoto of ESPN.com. He noted the disagreement left him with little choice but to remove the popular fighter from the card:
I didn't prevent Conor from fighting at UFC 200. Everybody, if you look at [last week's] news conference—Joanna Jedrzejczyk came in from Poland. Claudia Gadelha came in from Brazil. This is what we do. This is how it works.
I didn't prevent him from fighting at UFC 200. He knew what the deal was. I told him what the deal was. He opted to do that.
Meanwhile, while the UFC president is focused on getting back on the same page with McGregor, rumors have popped up about a possible boxing match between The Notorious and undefeated boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., who called the fight "possible," according to Luis Sandoval of Fight Hype.
A hyped rematch between Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship will now headline UFC 200. That said, the company needs to get McGregor back in the mix, as evidenced by his impressive gate totals for recent events.
Nate Diaz, his expected opponent at the milestone event, handed him his first loss in six years in March. So another battle between them figures to remain on the docket, but it's unclear when or where that's going to happen.
White's comments make it sound like any lingering issues between the pair are beginning to fade away. It will be interesting to see if that's still the case after they meet next week with the unexpected Mayweather talk receiving so much attention.
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