Ariel Helwani Blasts The UFC During Deleted Rant About Conor McGregor

The situation surrounding Conor McGregor and his beef with the UFC grew further this week. After defeating Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205, ‘The Notorious’ broke the record as the first champion to hold two belts at once. As it turned out, that was a short-lived celebration.

With UFC 206 struggling to stay afloat, suddenly McGregor’s holding two belts became unacceptable. Through chance it would be Anthony Pettis and Max Holloway who were promoted to the main event, as Daniel Cormier was injured and pulled from his fight with Anthony Johnson.

McGregor Paid The Price For UFC 206

Although UFC president Dana White had declared he’d strip Conor McGregor’s featherweight title, nothing was ever confirmed by both parties. Looking as though they were clamouring to save UFC 206, the promotion’s decision has been met with mixed reactions.

One mainstay in MMA who disagrees with the UFC stripping Conor McGregor is MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani. During his most recent episode of ‘The MMA Hour,’ Helwani blasted the UFC. The section was later removed from the show.

Here it is:

“The UFC doesn’t have the confidence in the likes of Max Holloway [and Pettis] to just headline the show on their own, in a fantastic fight,” Helwani continued.

“A fight we were all going gaga over when it was announced. Twenty-five minutes of those two going toe-to-toe should be enough. They don’t have enough confidence in [the fans’] ability to realise that this interim belt they are instituting now, is nothing more than just a fugazi belt. It’s just a promotional prop that they’re putting in there to hope that they’ll increase the pay-per-view buys.”

“They botched it. They botched it epically. They botched it because if you’re going to go ahead and strip Conor, then Holloway /Pettis needs to be for the real belt, and you say to Jose Aldo that you’re getting the first crack at the champion of this interim title, you’ve been talking about retirement, you’ve been talking about not fighting again, you’ve been talking about throwing fights, we don’t know the state of your career is, so we’re making Holloway/Pettis the real championship fight, because we just stripped the biggest draw and the biggest star of his belt.

“It’s a disservice to Holloway and Pettis, who are going to have an amazing fight in a couple of weeks, it’s a disservice to Jose Aldo, and it’s a disservice to Conor McGregor.”