UFC Champ Conor McGregor Likely Won’t Make Octagon Return Until Late 2017
Conor McGregor already said he was going to take some time off. Now it might be a little bit more than originally anticipated.
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“That belt hadn’t been defended in almost a year. And Conor’s taking another 10 months off for maternity. It’s not fair to the rest of the guys in the division,” White said on the UFC “Unfiltered” podcast. “Max Holloway’s on this incredible win streak..nine fights is three years. Pettis absolutely deserves a shot. And Jose Aldo just beat Frankie Edgar. You can’t tie up the entire division, but I did let him fight for it. You look at all the pros for the Eddie Alvarez-Conor fight, a lot of people picked Eddie Alvarez to win that fight.”
If White’s statement proves true, McGregor likely wouldn’t return
to the Octagon until September at the earliest. Meanwhile, White
denied that McGregor being forced to give up the featherweight
title created conflict between he and star fighter.
“Everybody always thinks that there’s some type of animosity with me and Conor and there’s always something bad brewing. I don’t know how much more I can say publicly how much I respect the guy, how much different and special he is and everything else. All this stuff going on [with] ‘I stripped him of the title,’ I didn’t strip him of anything,” White said. “I said every day leading up to that fight he had to give up one of those belts...He gave up the 145-pound title.
“He says, ‘I’m still a two-weight champion.’ He’s damn right he is. He is a two-weight champion. It doesn’t take away what that guy accomplished and what he’s done. When you look at the 145-pound title, he didn’t lose it, he gave it up. He’s the man. He’s the guy.”
While McGregor appears headed for a lengthy time on the sidelines, the “Notorious” one was recently granted a boxing license by the California State Athletic Commission. That news accompanied the renewed war of words between McGregor and retired boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, although that fight actually happening -- in any combat sports arena -- remains a long shot at best.
“He’s not fighting Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather isn’t going to fight him. It’s not going to happen. If you look at the biggest fight anybody ever talked about was Manny Paquiao-Floyd Mayweather. Look how long it took to make that fight, and those guys are in the same sport,” White said. “I’m not taking anything away from Floyd. No matter what you’re doing, to go undefeated for 20 years, it’s a huge feat. But Floyd has been perfect fighting the right guys at the right time. He isn’t gonna get in there and mix it up with Conor.”
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