D. White in a press conference after the ufc boston. Photo: Reproduction/YouTube
The winds have definitely changed to Conor McGregor, and not in a nice way. Without fighting for over a year and living off the fame he earned with all his merits, the Irishman comes up against arrogance and begins to realize, only now, that he is no longer the strong man of the UFC to the point of no longer having his desires fulfilled. by the organization. In an interview with 'The Boston Globe', the president of Ultimate, Dana White, talks about the current situation of the 'Notório' in the organization.
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“He will be back next year. Khabib is the man now. Conor is no longer the guy. So, Khabib is the one who has the right to say who he wants to fight,” said the boss.
The obstacle between McGregor and Ultimate began when the board denied the Irishman the opportunity to face Frankie Edgar, former lightweight champion (up to 70,3kg.) and who, in recent years, worked in the featherweight division (up to 65,7kg.). The request for Edgar came after the North American stated that he wanted to go down to bantamweight (up to 61,2kg.) After being defeated in yet another frustrated attempt to win the belt in the division that is today dominated by Max Holloway.
The refusal infuriated the Irishman, who began a series of provocations against the company's representative. According to Conor himself, the desire to face Frankie was due to the reason that the clash represented a kind of training for a new fight against Khabib, since Edgar's main weapon is Wrestling, a modality dominated by the Russian.
The fight, however, for White, sounded bad to the ears of mixed martial arts enthusiasts, as they are two athletes from completely different divisions, at least at the moment, as McGregor moved up to lightweight a while ago and Edgar, already at the end of his career, he could not present a competitive challenge to the 'Notório'.
Even contradicting his former pupil, White made a point of presenting some options for Conor's future in the sport. For him, the athlete is on the front line to challenge the winner among Jorge masvidal e Nate diaz, who appear in the main fight of the UFC 244, in November. In addition to welterweight, Dana opened up the range of other possibilities.
“Next month, at Madison Square Garde (UFC 244), we're going to have (Nate) Diaz against (Jorge) Masvidal. It's marked. So, whoever wins that fight, could face Conor. We have (Donald) Cowboy Cerrone, Justin gaethje, but Conor now actually wants a rematch against Khabib (Nurmagomedov). So, we’ll see how things turn out,” said Dana. But at the moment we have the fight between Khabib and Tony Ferguson. Georges St-Pierre also wants to fight, and only then do we have the fight to Conor McGregor”, explained the agent.
Conor achieved international fame when, in 2015, he hit José Aldo, until then undisputed featherweight champion in a duel that saw harsh provocations from the Irishman in promoting the fight. McGregor, however, talked as much as he made it happen, knocking out the Brazilian in just 13 seconds, in the main fight of UFC 194.
After that, the 'Notório' became a world star, winning another belt, this time at lightweight, and even achieving the feat of holding a boxing match against the legendary world champion Floyd Mayweather, in August 2017.
Fame and money caused Conor to become a very inactive athlete within the UFC, which, at one point, led to the lightweight title being taken from the fighter. The last time he stepped into the Octagon was in October last year, when he tried to regain his belt and ended up defeated by Khabib Nurmagomedov via submission in round four, in the main fight of UFC 229, which was one of the most watched events in MMA history.
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