Conor McGregor News

Justin Golightly - December 28, 2017

One of 2018’s biggest MMA mysteries is if Conor McGregor will return to MMA and who would he fight. Titles, contracts, it doesn’t matter, McGregor can decide whatever he wants to do and that’s one of the things that makes him so compelling, yet so frustrating. Out of nowhere, Dana White popped onto FS1 this afternoon and opened up about Conor McGregor. While has seems to have no idea what his plans are either, he did say that if he returns to the UFC, he has to defend his belt. Whether that be against Tony Ferguson, or whoever may beat him for the interim title depending on how long it takes McGregor to return. “If Conor McGregor fights next year, that’ll be awesome. If Conor McGregor doesn’t fight, the UFC will go on. […] There’s two different sides to this coin, there’s the one that you just said [about it being hard to wake up in the morning and get hit in the face when you’re so rich], then there’s the one where there is only many trips you can go on and there’s only so much stuff you can buy before you start to get bored and you want to get back in the game. So, I don’t know. I don’t really have a feel on what Conor wants to do. Conor’s rich, it’s the holidays, I’m sure his whole family has a great Christmas. We’ll see what the New Year brings.”

Tom Taylor - December 27, 2017

There is quite a bit of mystery surrounding the next fight of UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor. In the opinion of lightweight contender Kevin Lee, however, McGregor will probably return to the Octagon to battle interim champion Tony Ferguson in the new year. “I think he comes back, he fights Tony,” Lee said on a recent episode of MMA Junkie Radio. “He don’t want to, but I feel like at some point they’re going to force him to. Either that, or something crazy is going to happen there. But at least I think everything that I’ve seen and all the little whispers that I’ve heard, he comes back, he fights Tony.”

Justin Golightly - December 26, 2017

At this point, it’s anyone’s guess as to what Conor McGregor decides to do next. UFC interim lightweight champion is expecting to unify his belt against the man, meanwhile he’s got a list of boxers wanting to do business with him. Floyd Mayweather was quick to shoot down rumors of him coming into the UFC, while Manny Pacquiao wanted to get McGregor back in the boxing ring. The Irishman himself claims it is an MMA fight that’s next, so Bruce Buffer brings up the idea of Pacquiao meeting the champ in the Octagon instead. “All respect to Manny Pacquiao, one of my favorite boxers of all time. I think, for me personally, the [Floyd] Mayweather/Conor McGregor fight was the fight that we all enjoyed and got our $100 worth of entertainment. I would rather much see Conor get back into MMA. It excites me much more. I mean, let’s see a boxer want to step up and fight under MMA rules and fight Conor in the Octagon, and it might be another tremendously huge payday.”

Russell Ess - December 26, 2017

Would a Conor McGregor and Georges St-Pierre matchup be the biggest fight in UFC history? It would certainly make for an interesting match of styles and with both fighter’s star power, it would definitely make for some massive numbers. St-Pierre’s longtime Tristar Gym coach Firas Zahabi spoke with Express Sport recently on the matchup that he says he has been interested in this fight for St-Pierre for some time.

Russell Ess - December 22, 2017

Remember when UFC superstar Conor McGregor tweeted that he had retired last year? Well, we all know that didn’t end up being true and it would have been a shame if “The Notorious” hung up the gloves back then as he has accomplished some historical feats since. If McGregor retired in April of last year like he tweeted, he would not have gone on to become the only fighter in history to be a simultaneous two-division UFC champion. McGregor also would not have made the biggest payday of his career by transitioning to the boxing ring for the money fight with Floyd Mayweather.

Justin Golightly - December 22, 2017

After Conor McGregor heard the rumors of Floyd Mayweather squashed and that he was not going to the UFC after all, he was quick to Tweet out what seemed to be a response. However, there are some people who feel that McGregor shouldn’t be too quick to throw out insults when it comes to fighting. Frankie Edgar’s manager Ali Abdelaziz and coach Mark Henry recently joined forces to give the brash Irishman a piece of their mind on social media. Mostly centered around how the once featherweight champ allegedly ducked Edgar at all costs. “It’s crazy Conor McGregor [calls] everyone pussies when the guy’s ducked everyone that can beat him. Frankie Edgar, Khabib [Nurmagomedov], and never defended his titles. He only fights guys stylistically good for him. And his coaches only talk about guys he can’t beat. Not sure who’s the pussy here. Chad Mendes was in the mountain camping and he barely made weight. He had 10 days to train.” — Ali Abdelaziz via his official Twitter.

Justin Golightly - December 22, 2017

Conor McGregor has always been close to the members of his team. He’s stayed with them throughout his meteoric rise and intends on maintaining his loyalty no matter what. So after Artem Lobov was invited to train Russian special forces operatives at the Kremlin, McGregor was quick to praise his right-hand-man who calls a brother. Although, it wouldn’t be a proper public statement from McGregor unless is made fight fans and media raise their eyebrows. In his proud social media post, he alludes to a possible fight in Russia sometime in the future. “I am proud of my brother Artem Lobov. Inside the world famous Kremlin compound discussing and teaching our training methods to the Russian federal reserve on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin. One day soon I will visit Russia and potentially compete there for my Russian fans, alongside my brother Artem. Thank you to all our Russian supporters for recognizing our lifetime of hard work and supporting us along the entire way. Without effort, you can not get a fish out of the pond.” — Conor McGregor via his official Instagram.

Justin Golightly - December 21, 2017

It somehow seems like ages ago since Conor McGregor was screaming into the faces of everyone that he owned boxing. Just a handful of months ago, McGregor did the unthinkable and actually fought Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match. Both of them made an obscene amount of money and walked away from the ring to enjoy it all. The UFC’s self-proclaimed ‘Champ Champ’ did a lot of his training at the UFC’s Performance Institute in a ring emblazoned with the UFC and his own logo for McGregor Sports and Entertainment. However, today that ring sports new logo. The boxing ring is mine. pic.twitter.com/4lMwOXtPhT

Justin Golightly - December 20, 2017

Georges St-Pierre waltzed into the UFC after being out for four years and added another ridiculous accomplishment to his career by taking the UFC middleweight title from Michael Bisping. It was a gigantic moment, but UFC 217 somehow seems like a distant memory now, especially after he dropped the title only a month later due to his health issues. As the combat sports year starts to close, Bisping reflects on the controversial aftermath of St-Pierre’s win. The former champ still thinks he’s a prick, but concedes that it was actually a really smart move. “[Georges St-Pierre]’s a prick. He’s a prick, god bless him. I’m gonna be brutally honest here, [him vacating the title is] a double-edged sword. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. By the way, Dana White threw me under the bus when he first found out. He wasn’t happy with Georges and he said, ‘Yeah, well he cherry-picked Bisping.’ That doesn’t do me any favors! He didn’t cherry-pick me, but I did say that. I said Georges wanted to fight me because he thought I was an easy fight and this and that, and he got the win, and then he vacated the belt. Now he vacated the belt because apparently he had to go to the hospital after our fight and he thought he was gonna be paralyzed and he had a bad neck and all this type of stuff. I don’t know. He just doesn’t fancy doing it again.”

Russell Ess - December 20, 2017

November 12, 2016, was the last time we saw Conor McGregor fight in the Octagon. McGregor became the UFC lightweight champion that night, capturing the belt from Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 and also became the first fighter in history to hold two UFC weight division’s titles simultaneously. Over a year has passed since and McGregor has only competed once and it was outside of the Octagon in a highly lucrative boxing match against Floyd Mayweather, which was the second highest pay-per-view event of all time.

Justin Golightly - December 20, 2017

Tyron Woodley couldn’t get Nate Diaz to come out and speak when they were potentially in talks for a superfight. The only thing Dana White could draw out of Diaz is a social media Stockton slap. At the end of the day, it took hometown battle rapper Okwerdz for Diaz to walk out of the shadows and pick up a mic. …And it didn’t disappoint. In his first all-encompassing interview since May on a special episode of The MMA Hour, Nate Diaz spits more fire than can be contained within the boundaries of this article. He goes off on Conor McGregor, the UFC’s suspect marketing tactics, and being on lockdown preventing his move to boxing. “Conor [McGregor]’s their guy. They just give him what they want to do with him and they build who they want to build and I’m not one of them, but it’s all good now, I’ll build myself. […] Yeah, a lot [of boxing promotions wanted to buy out my contract]. Years ago. They promote him as the money guy and he became bigger than everybody because that’s what they promoted him as. I was the guy bringing all the views and all the numbers. They didn’t announce it as that, so that’s why when they were going to buy out my contract [the UFC] were like, ‘Are you kidding? This is our guy. We just don’t want to tell anybody this is our guy or why because then his value goes up and he gets what he wants and we don’t want to give him what he wants, we want to give little Irish dude what he wants.'”

Justin Golightly - December 19, 2017

With as much happening in the welterweight division, one hard-hitting Scouser can’t get anyone to fight him. Darren Till wanted to test Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson’s Karate techniques, but that looks like it’s not happening. He was rooting for Mike Perry to win at UFC Winnipeg to finish what they started at UFC Gdansk, which didn’t pan out. Finally, he’s turned his sights on Rafael dos Anjos and Santiago Ponzinibbio. After finishing Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, Till is a hot commodity hoping to leverage for a big fight. Of course, no fight would ever be bigger than Conor McGregor, although Till says he’s not there yet. “I’d love to fight Conor [McGregor] but I don’t know what Conor wants to do. What does Conor want to do? Does he want to fight with [Paul] Malignaggi? I heard he was meant to be fighting [Manny] Pacquiao. Does he want to fight to reclaim his belt or defend his belt at lightweight? Does he want to go to feather? You know, you don’t really know with Conor. He’s the biggest name in sports. At the moment I’m, shall we say, insignificant. There’s way more bigger options. But along the line, if he wants to come up to welterweight and fight a superior striker in myself, me and him, we can bounce. […] Right now, I just want to be the greatest fighter in MMA. In the whole of MMA.” — Darren Till speaking to Obviously Fight Talk.

Justin Golightly - December 16, 2017

He’s the multi-million dollar mad man at the at the top of the combat sports world. After ripping two titles out of the hands of UFC champions and making history, he walked away from MMA on paternity leave. Oh, and boxed probably the greatest boxer of our generation to make more money than he’s made in his entire career fighting in a cage. Everyone wondered when and where he’d return. Would it be boxing Manny Pacquiao? Or would he strut back home and face one of the many men waiting for him back in the Octagon. The answer seems to be the UFC. “We’ll see what happens. I think a true fight is what I want to do next. A real fight. Exactly, what’s a real fight? MMA next. F-ck WWE.” — Conor McGregor said speaking to TMZ.

Justin Golightly - December 15, 2017

A lot of words come to mind when you hear the name Conor McGregor. We’ll let you fill in your own blanks on that one, but whether it be praise or hate, you have to admit one of those words has to be options. Basically any fight in the UFC inside three divisions is open for the the taking. On top of that, he has at least huge boxing bouts he can explore. If all of that wasn’t enough distractions for him to be lured away from the UFC, he also could Vince McMahon strut into the WWE universe at any time. Legendary Jim Ross said in a recent interview that he’s pretty sure they’ve already discussed business. “Vince [McMahon] knows who Conor McGregor is. You know, Vince doesn’t live on Uranus. He’s pretty well read, he pays attention, he pays attention. And Paul Levesque [Triple H] certainly knows who Conor McGregor is. Look, I don’t have this concrete information or source telling me all that good stuff, I would be very surprised if the two parties on some level haven’t had some kind of communication. It may be lawyer to lawyer, probably that more than anything, but just to feel out interest. Conor is another global star and Conor will sell wrestling tickets, because for a one-off, for a one-time deal he’ll sell tickets to see how he’s going to do. And he strikes me as the kind of guy that has such a competitive ego that he will do anything to not fail, to not look bad.”

Justin Golightly - December 15, 2017

Conor McGregor can fight anyone right now, absolutely anyone he wants. That’s good and bad for the UFC. After making more money than his entire UFC career combined in one boxing match, everyone knew it was going to be difficult to get him back to the Octagon. The latest opponent for McGregor that has popped up is none other than Manny Pacquiao, who claimed he was in negotiations to box the Irishman in April. Dana White was quick to shut that down, citing it would result in a lawsuit, but went further last night on social media to put the final nail in the coffin. He’s not Boxing anyone so calm down cry babies.

Justin Golightly - December 14, 2017

Conor McGregor can now boast about another record to his already ridiculous list. He already shattered his pay scale with his historical boxing bout with Floyd Mayweather. There were numerous conflicting reports about how well the blockbuster superfight performed, but not we have the true numbers and they’re still nothing to turn your nose up at. The SHOWTIME pay-per-view ended up doing 4.3 million in PPV buys, just 3ooK short of breaking the record that still holds solid for Mayweather’s fight with Manny Pacquiao. SHOWTIME Sports confirmed today that the SHOWTIME PPV presentation of Mayweather vs. McGregor on August 26, 2017 generated 4.3 million pay-per-view buys in North America. This includes traditional television distribution and online portals such as the new SHOWTIME PPV app and SHOWTIMEPPV.com as well as UFC.TV in U.S. and Canada.

Justin Golightly - December 13, 2017

Things at lightweight are as convoluted as a Christopher Nolan movie plot. Tony Ferguson is the interim champion, who is waiting for Conor McGregor while he’s off surveying all of his nearly infinite options. Meanwhile, Eddie Alvarez just finished Justin Gaethje and Khabib Nurmagomedov is just a couple of weeks away from fighting Edson Barboza to potentially determine the #1 contender. That leaves Dustin Poirier just below this logjam, potentially a single win away himself of being in title contention. Which is why he’s pushing the UFC to strip McGregor to release the floodgates as much as he wants to fight Alvarez again. “The thing is, the UFC’s pretending with Conor [McGregor], but you have a list of top 10 fighters who aren’t pretending or messing around. This is their lives and their goals and their family’s future, a lot of stuff on the line here. So no pretending — let’s strip the belt from the guy or make him fight. We have to [strip him] and then other fights make sense. Tony [Ferguson] gets the belt, his belt becomes the real belt and then he fights the winner out of these next few fights we have coming at the beginning of the year. We’ve got to clear it up. I’m going to be the world champion next year.” — Dustin Poirier speaking to MMAWeekly.

Justin Golightly - December 13, 2017

What Volkan Oezdemir has done in a single year is pretty remarkable. It’s hard to believe he just debuted with the UFC back in February. Since then, he’s stacked together three straight wins, two knockouts, and earned a light heavyweight title shot against Daniel Cormier in January for UFC 220. If there is one person who knows about accomplishments, it’s Conor McGregor. Just take a look at what he’s done since his Jose Aldo fight. Oezdemir gave the UFC’s only Champ Champ some praise and asked him if he could pick his brain in the gym, to which McGregor obliged. “Hey Conor [McGregor], how are you? This is Volkan [Oezdemir]. I hope everything is well wiith you. First of all, I wanted to congratulate you on everything you’ve accomplished so far. It is amazing. Nobody has ever done that before. They told me to ask you a few questions, but I have only one request. What do you think if next time I go to Switzerland, I stop by Dublin so we can share the mat together [and] share some knowledge about fighting, because I love your philosophy of fighting.” — Volkan Oezdemir speaking to Takedown by Gentside.