Dana White Reveals Conor McGregor Turned Down UFC 249 Fight

Conor McGregor announced his retirement out of the blue, immediately after UFC 250 concluded this past weekend. ‘The Notorious’ later revealed that the reason for his decision was the lack of options for him in the UFC.

However, Dana White believes that McGregor has himself to blame for his current situation. In an appearance at ESPN’s First Take (transcribed by MMA Fighting), the UFC president revealed that Conor had previously told him that he wasn’t prepared to be a backup for Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Tony Ferguson.

“He wants to fight Gaethje. Gaethje just won to get the fight with Khabib,” Dana said. “He just beat Tony Ferguson. Conor had the opportunity to slide into that spot if Khabib or Tony fell out.

“He came back and said ‘I’m not a replacement fighter, I’m not going to do it.’ He would be in that position now if he took the fight. He didn’t, Gaethje did so Gaethje gets it.”

With the first Fight Island card set to go down on July 11th, the UFC can now hold international fight nights. Under the burden of pulling everything off, Dana thinks it would be difficult for him to give McGregor the exact fight he is asking for.

“Conor McGregor is frustrated right now because, I mean look what’s going on. Look at what we’re pulling off. We’re literally just going to Yas Island right now to pull off these fights because the hardest thing to do right now is to get people into the country from other parts of the world. We are a true global business. We’re the only one pulling off live sports right now. If I continue to do fights in the United States, I’m going to burn out all my American talent.

“Now we got Yas Island ready to go, it’s set up. This is just a matter of Conor being frustrated I think in that he can’t get what he wants right now. It’s just not possible.”

Do you think Conor McGregor will fight again in 2020?


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