Retired UFC fighter and current color commentator Chael Sonnen discussed Conor McGregor’s retirement tweet, and subsequent pulling from UFC 200.
“I don’t have any inside info on this. Just being around the business since the 90’s, I know how it works,” said Sonnen, as transcribed by Jed Meshew for MMA Fighting. “I know how this whole thing went down. And if I tell you what I think, I guarantee I’m 98% right if not 100.
“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.”
“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.”
“Who’s a good replacement for Conor? I guarantee you Georges St.-Pierre’s phone is blowing up right now and he’s getting a big offer. That’s the guy they’re gonna go after.”
“I’ve known Dana since 2005. He’s not putting a patch in this boat. Conor could call him right now, he’s not patching up UFC 200.”
