“Realistically I should be a two-weight UFC world champion,” McGregor said Friday on a UFC 202 conference call. “If I fought Rafael dos Anjos, if he didn’t pussy out of that last one and showed up, the shots I cracked Nate with in the first eight minutes of that [fight] would’ve KO’d Rafael dos Anjos stiff. That’s no question. I would be sitting here right now as a two-weight world champion.
“But I don’t dwell on that. I am happy that this happened, because it forced me to look at my preparation, look at the route I was going. It forced me to reassess, so I’m happy that this happened. But make no mistake, this one means a hell of a lot to me. This one means more than any amount of gold or money combined. I gave up a hell of a lot of money, I gave up opportunities, Hollywood opportunities, for this contest. I wanted to restrict media. I want to solely focus on this, so that should tell you how much this fight means to me and I’ve been preparing accordingly.”
“I should get a cut of that (movie role in XXX),” McGregor said. “I didn’t even get a thank you off Bisping. That was my role. I met with the guy before the Aldo fight — the director came out, his and his little team came out and we spoke and I said yeah, I’ll do the film. And then after the last fight I rang him up and I said listen, I can’t go into this, because it’s not something I’m trying to do right now. I need to get that win back. I need to go focus and do what got me here in the first place, so I disengaged from the film altogether.
“That was a seven-figure deal that I turned down so I could prepare for this fight. Myself and Bisping are managed by the same people. Bisping scooped up the role, he got it, and that was that. So I just let that go. This is more important to me. I’ve said it before, I am not in this for show business. This is the fight business I am in here and that’s all I’m trying to do here. I’m not trying to do none of this other sh*t.”
