Conor McGregor (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
The Contender Series made a triumphant return for season 8 on Tuesday night but the talk of the town wasn’t the Contender Series or its fighters, it was Dana White announcing at the post-fight press conference that Conor McGregor will not be fighting this year.
MMA reporter Amy Kaplan tried to get some confirmation about if Conor McGregor will be fighting and if he is will he be fighting this year, “I saw that you and Conor were both in Sturgis I’m wondering if you guys met at all and talked about the potential of his fight?”
Dana White replies, “We talked, yeah we talked. We didn’t meet up but we talked. Yeah, he wants to fight so we will figure it out.”
As most of the fight fans around the world, Kaplan was eager to know when Conor McGregor will fight, “Soon? By the end of the year?” as Dana White dropped the bombshell “Not this year, he will not fight this year.”
It’s been a whirlwind of a year for Conor McGregor as he was scheduled to fight Michael Chandler at UFC 303 at International Fight Week but a toe injury kept him out of that fight where the UFC had to make other plans having Alex Pereira rematch Jiri Prochazka to defend his title yet again.
RG reminds that ever since McGregor pulled out of his fight at UFC 303 there has been speculation as to when and where he will fight again for the UFC. It went from McGregor headlining Noche UFC at the Las Vegas Sphere but once the bantamweight title fight was announced between Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili speculations changed to him fighting at the end of the year.
During this whole time, McGregor has been campaigning to fight in December and still has been doing so in a since-deleted tweet from McGregor
“Ah Dana, December is the date! Bring the calendar year home with a winning event! Come on now, what’s this? I am off to altitude next month to prepare. DECEMBER!! Tell Dana and UFC WE WANT DECEMBER! WE DESERVE DECEMBER!”
Dana White has yet to announce any plans for the month of December since it is 4 months away however, it is unlikely that he would go back on his word after announcing that we will not see the return of “The Notorious” this year.
The one fighter who’s been down bad during this whole saga has been McGregor’s opponent Michael Chandler who’s been chomping at the bit to finally get back in the Octagon but also get his hands on McGregor. He has now waited almost two years for this fight and after another setback, it seems like he has finally moved on from the notion of fighting McGregor.
“Ah Conor, the sport will move on and thrive without you. Put to bed. Laid to rest. Soon a distant memory. You’ve vastly overestimated your importance of this game for almost a decade. Godspeed.”
It looks like this never-ending saga with Conor McGregor has no end in sight until he makes what could potentially be his final walk to the Octagon. It remains to be what the future holds for “The Notorious” Conor McGregor but the fans are certainly getting restless and it’s only a matter of time until their interest in seeing him return just fades away.
Garrett Kerman
