Video After The Jump
We've got some clarification on Conor McGregor supposed retirement and his situation with the UFC... we think.
As we previously reported, The Notorious surprised everyone on Tuesday, April 19, by announcing that he was retiring from mixed martial arts at the young age of 27.
I have decided to retire young.
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) April 19, 2016
Thanks for the cheese.
Catch ya's later.
Following several hours of rampant speculation as to why he would walk away from the sport, specifically the UFC, that has made him a millionaire in a very short period of time, UFC President Dana White appeared on ESPN's Sportscenter to offer an explanation.
He says Mystic Mac refused to show up in Las Vegas to help promote the organization's huge UFC 200 card and and his rematch with Nate Diaz, that was scheduled for July 9, 2016 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. As a result he was taken off of the card.
"Well, what's happened is, we've pulled Conor McGregor from UFC 200," White said on SportsCenter. "And we're working on other fights right now. Conor did not want to come to Las Vegas [this week] to film the commercial or be a part of any of the marketing that we have. He's in Iceland training and [not participating in the marketing] is not possible. This has only happened one other time in UFC history. Nick Diaz didn't show up for his press conference for his fight with Georges St-Pierre and I pulled Nick Diaz from the fight. We've had other instances like this where guys didn't want to do the press conference, [but] you have to. You have to do the press conference, so Conor put out that tweet. Is Conor McGregor retiring? Only he could answer that question."
Translation: The UFC is not about to let an athlete dictate to them when he or she is going to fulfill their contractual obligation to put in the work that is necessary to sell a fight to the public. Either do it their way or kick rocks.
There are rumors that McGregor wanted $10 million to go through with the match and the UFC balked. Dana's explanation may be a smokescreen, but it's all we have to go on at this point.
Chael Sonnen
Former UFC fighter Chael Sonnen believes McGregor overplayed his hand and it blew up in his face.
"I don't have any inside info on this. Just being around the business since the 90's, I know how it works. I know how this whole thing went down. And if I tell you what I think, I guarantee I'm 98 percent right if not 100," Sonnen said on Facebook Live, via MMA Fighting on Tuesday. "Conor had a deal with the UFC. And Conor's now going back and trying to renegotiate and it just doesn't work that way. It can't. You can't write everything down, you can't get your contracts done all the time in this business. There's 500 guys under contract. There's not even that many employees in the UFC. I think there's like 340 employees with 500 fighters. There's 53 shows scheduled for a year that only has 52 weeks in the year. You have to be able to make a phone call, count on whatever the guy says, hang up the phone and that's the end of it. You have to be able to do that.
Conor has a contract, he made a deal, somewhere he didn't sign it. Let the promotion go out, let the money get spent and then realized ‘I've got the upper hand. Now I can come back and renegotiate. Who's going to tell me no when the advertising is already done?' That's what he did. Guaranteed. With no inside knowledge, guaranteed that's what happened," Sonnen continued. "He might really be done...I don't know if he wants to be done. This was a negotiation tool. But he called the bluff of the wrong guys. These are gamblers man, there's rules in Vegas. If you say bet you have a bet. I mean that. You go to a casino, you don't put your money down, you tell the pit boss ‘I want that bet' if he yells the word bet you have a bet. And it goes both ways. If you win it he'll pay you...Anytime you go into a negotiation and you call someone's bluff, man you better mean it because this is what can happen. When you get beat up by a guy, and then you agree to fight him again, and then you pull out, it really doesn't matter after that. And the miscalculation here by Conor is he's not gonna be telling his side. He's gonna be telling his side to whoever.com. He's not gonna be telling it on FS1 or ESPN or anywhere else. Those days are gone. This was a big mistake."
— TheShoeGawd™ (@theshoegawd) March 6, 2016
Diaz defeated McGregor in their first bout via submission in round 2 at UFC 196 on March 5th.
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