Conor McGregor has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately.
The UFC lightweight champion’s only fight in 2017 was his heavily criticised boxing debut against Floyd Mayweather and, in recent weeks, his name has been associated with homophobic slurs, an assault on a Bellator employee and a rumoured altercation in an Irish pub with dangerous Dublin gang members.
Claims that McGregor was one of several men involved in a brawl on Sunday night did the rounds this week but UFC President Dana White doesn’t believe the stories.
“I don’t think it’s true,” White said, via MMA Fighting. “Because if it was true, it would be big. Conor can walk down the street and it’s big news now. If this were true, I just have to believe it would be off-the-charts crazy.
“If it’s true, we’ll end up finding out. I can’t chase all these things around. If it’s true, we’ll get it figured out and we’ll go from there.”
After insisting that McGregor was pulled from a fight at UFC 219 on December 30 due to his antics in the Bellator cage earlier this month, White revealed that the disciplinary process was being led by the Association of Boxing Commissions.
White also admitted that, thanks to McGregor’s huge payday from the Mayweather fight, we may have already seen the last of the Irishman in the Octagon.
“He was being dealt with by the head of the ABC,” White said. “We were gonna fight him, regardless of what [McGregor’s manager] Audie [Attar] says, we were working on a fight for him at the end of the year. And he’s just not ready.
“Listen … Conor might never fight again. The guy’s got a fucking hundred million dollars.
“These guys make money and that’s it. Fighting is the worst. Try to get up and get punched in the face every day when you’ve got $100 million in the bank. Money changes everything for a lot of people.”
McGregor’s recent indiscretions are reminiscent of Jon Jones’ infamous fall from grace.
The former UFC light heavyweight champion was a model citizen in his early career before fame and fortune led him down a perilous path that he still can’t seem to get away from.
And the similarities between McGregor and Jones are not lost on White, who has seen how money can change fighters on several occasions.
“He’s a young, rich kid who is a god in Ireland,” White said. “That’s not the healthiest environment either. It’s all part of it. I don’t know if you guys remember in the very beginning with Jon Jones. There’s no doubt the talent was there. I used to go, ‘The guy is talented, but he’s young, he’s rich, he’s the king of the world now. Hopefully he can keep it together.’ That was way before the crazy shit started to happen. And there it is. It happens.
“What’s weird is it happens more in this sport, in fighting, in the fighting business, more than any other sport.”
