Did anyone else catch that?
The UFC 200 card took a massive hit this week, as the main event between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor fell apart. After Diaz submitted McGregor at UFC 196, it was swiftly announced they’d rematch at the July super event, but not any more.
After announcing he was retiring in a sensational Tweet, ‘The Notorious’ threw a massive spanner in the plans of the UFC. Some people believed it was a hoax, or perhaps McGregor was playing games. Then McGregor released the following statement:
“I am just trying to do my job and fight here.
I am paid to fight. I am not yet paid to promote”.
“There comes a time when you need to stop handing out flyers and get back to the damn shop.
50 world tours, 200 press conferences, 1 million interviews, 2 million photo shoots, and at the end of it all I’m left looking down the barrel of a lens, staring defeat in the face, thinking of nothing but my incorrect fight preparation. And the many distractions that led to this.”
“I will not do this if I am back on the road handing out flyers again. I will always play the game and play it better than anybody, but just for this one, where I am coming off a loss, I asked for some leeway where I can just train and focus. I did not shut down all media requests. I simply wanted a slight adjustment. But it was denied.”
“There had been 10 million dollars allocated for the promotion of this event is what they told me. So as a gesture of good will, I went and not only saved that 10 million dollars in promotion money, I then went and tripled it for them. And all with one tweet. Keep that 10 mill to promote the other bums that need it. My shows are good.”
“I will offer, like I already did, to fly to New York for the big press conference that was scheduled, and then I will go back into training. With no distractions. If this is not enough or they feel I have not deserved to sit this promotion run out this one time, well then I don’t know what to say.”
“For the record also –
For USADA and for the UFC and my contract stipulations –
I AM NOT RETIRED.”
But now UFC president Dana White has pretty much thrown McGregor under the bus…
