Where’s Conor McGregor?
Dave Meltzer: “There is a lot of frustration within the UFC about McGregor’s attitude, but in the end, he’s got the leverage …”
Former UFC lightweight and featherweight champion Conor McGregor can work media events like no other. The world tour for his boxing match vs. Floyd Mayweather was more compelling to watch than a circus.
However, for the fight vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov which is just five weeks away, there have been a few Instagram posts, but, basically, it’s crickets. In his latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscription) Dave Meltzer explains why.
One of the reasons you haven’t seen much in the way of interviews and such is that McGregor has not agreed to do anything. There are no press conferences scheduled because McGregor at this point hasn’t agreed to them. There is a lot of frustration within the UFC about McGregor’s attitude, but in the end, he’s got the leverage and the ticket sales and secondary market results only give him more leverage. The feeling is that this may be the biggest non-boxing PPV of all-time, and the only reason it wouldn’t be is that McGregor hasn’t been pushing it hard. McGregor was able to get a larger piece of the action for this fight than any of his UFC fights to date, so there is a direct correlation more than ever between his work in promoting the fight and his pocketbook, but this may also show that he knows he’s in a real fight and doesn’t want to break training. The feeling is that if he can stop the takedowns, which nobody has been able to do with Khabib Nurmagomedov so far, he will destroy him standing. And if he can’t, he will be destroyed on the ground.
Conor McGregor has a long memory; in 2016 he was removed from a headliner at UFC 200.
“UFC President Dana White announced Tuesday that UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor has been pulled from his UFC 200 main event against Nate Diaz on July 9,” announced the UFC at the time. “White revealed that the decision was made by the promotion after McGregor informed UFC officials that he would not participate in any promotional activities, including a commercial shoot and press conferences.”
McGregor explained that he needed the time to prepare for his fight, but the league was adamant. Now he needs the time to prepare for his fight, and power has apparently shifted some.
McGregor fights Nurmagomedov at UFC 229: Khabib vs. McGregor on October 6, 2018, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
