Talk of a series decider between McGregor and Diaz that would headline UFC 219, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on December 30, is dismissed by White. White categorically denies the rumours of McGregor vs Diaz III being set by tweeting:
Not true AT ALL
Not true AT ALL
— Dana White (@danawhite) September 24, 2017
After complaints from nine people, an advert for Paddy Power that urged punters to “always bet on black” before the Floyd Mayweather fight with Conor McGregor has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), who said it was likely to cause “serious offence”. Paddy Power claimed the ad was not intended to cause offence on the grounds of race.
Following in the footsteps of Conor McGregor, Rio Ferdinand, the former Manchester United and England captain, is to attempt to become a professional boxer.
When Betfair approached me about the Defender to Contender challenge, the chance to prove myself in a new sport was a real draw. Boxing is an amazing sport for the mind and the body. I have always had a passion for it and this challenge is the perfect opportunity to show people what’s possible. It’s a challenge I’m not taking lightly, clearly not everyone can become a professional boxer, but with the team of experts Betfair are putting together and the drive I have to succeed, anything is possible.
Chael Sonnen says McGregor is selling something more than entertainment.
People always miss what Conor’s selling. He’s selling trash-talk’ or ‘he’s selling entertainment.’ Well you’re close. I mean, there is some trash-talk there and he’s definitely entertaining. But if you could only use one word, he’s selling confidence. That is the number one thing. Anybody, any weight class, and it’s one thing to say it. It can be entertaining when a guy says it and goes and cuts a promo. But when you got a guy that walks the walk. You got a guy that will take on Jose Aldo, who hadn’t lost in ten years. You got a guy that will change weight class and go up to 170 and take on Diaz, go down to 155, world championship and take on Eddie, switch sports and take on [Floyd Mayweather]. It’s confidence that he’s selling. It’s confidence that’s on display. It’s a confidence that so many people wish they had. By so many, I mean everybody. Everybody wishes they had this kind of confidence and then go out and try to follow through on their dreams.
On his podcast, Rogan says that, despite being beaten by Floyd Mayweather, McGregor will continue to box professionally.
I don’t think [Conor is done boxing]. Look, he went the very first fight against the greatest ever and he didn’t look too bad. If there’s a legit, big fight – say if Canelo Alvarez steps up and says that he wants to fight Conor McGregor, [Conor] might do it…It wouldn’t be a smart move. The difference between Canelo and Floyd – Floyd was just a brilliant boxer. Canelo is a murderous puncher and he’ll f**k you up. He’ll hurt you. [Golvokin] is not a good fight for him either. Neither Canelo nor Golvkin is a good fight for him. They’re terrible fights for him. Those guys are different.
McGregor will get paid £100,000 from one night in Scotland, for a meet-and-greet event with fans in Glasgow. Supporters will have to fork out up to £1,100 for the chance to get up close to the superstar at the city’s SEC Armadillo on September 29. But the real reason McGregor is visiting Glasgow, is because he was bowled over by a display unveiled by Celtic fans last month. An insider:
Conor’s not short of a few bob. There’s no bigger name right now, and he’s in demand across the globe, but the truth is he was really keen to come to Scotland. He loves his Scots fans and really wanted to thank them personally. It had been agreed in principal before the negotiations even started.
A breakdown of ticket sales for the McGregor Mayweather fight has been released by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. The hottest ticket was priced at $5,000, but these seats, located at the top of the lower level seats at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena, were deeply discounted, sinking to $1,500, close to fight night. Overall, the event was well short of the $72.2 million live gate record set by Mayweather’s fight against Manny Pacquiao in 2015. Yet it still generated a massive box office payout, with $55,414,865.79 in revenue on 13,231 tickets for an average of $4,188.26 per ticket. The event’s pay-per-view buy rate, on the other hand, is expected to break the all-time record of 4.6 million set by Mayweather vs. Pacquiao.
Breakdown of ticket sales:
Total tickets sold and complimentary: 13,231 Total live gate: $55,414,865.79
Mayweather appears for his first television appearance since the fight with McGregor, on Steve Harvey’s new talk show. Harvey asks if Mayweather and McGregor have spoken at all since the fight.
No, we haven’t spoke since the fight. We had a beef and settled our beef. We had a beef. I feel like I was the better man. Like I told him, experience will play a major key. But I said on paper everything leans towards Conor McGregor. You know, he’s 28, I’m 40-years-old. But, being in the sport 21 years, I just feel like the wisdom that I have, the IQ is totally, totally different. Especially when it’s at the pinnacle…I knew that he was used to fighting 25 minutes. I said once we get him past 25 minutes, he’s a dead man walking. Dead man walking.
At UFC 216, Ferguson takes on Kevin Lee for the interim lightweight championship, and should he win the belt, Ferguson would expect to be first to face current UFC lightweight champion McGregor, whenever McGregor decides to return to MMA. But rumors, and McGregor’s coaching staff, suggest that McGregor will complete his trilogy with Diaz when he does next defend his lightweight strap, leaving Ferguson out in the cold again.
Ferguson speaks about the potential of getting passed over for a title shot even if he wins the interim title, saying that the UFC needs to honor his belt and make McGregor face him should he win.
I believe that they absolutely need to. If that’s my belt and he has the belt, they need to unify both belts. F**k that Nate Diaz three shit. Both those b**ches f**in – they want to try and act like they want to go and make money. Nate don’t want to fight. He’s trying to recover from a f**king hit that he took with his management and all that other things. McGregor’s gotta defend or vacate. He’s gotta defend that belt, he needs to come back. If not, there goes his legacy, there goes the UFC s**t. I mean, really, legitimately, why do we have rankings? Why do we have a belt system? Why do we have all this other stuff?
As talk of a trilogy match between McGregor and Diaz hots up, Diaz’ coach Perez, believes McGregor will suffer his second UFC loss:
If Nathan goes through training camp with no injuries, McGregor’s not gonna have a chance… I mean, they think McGregor can box, Nathan can box. Right now in the last two fights he fought him, the first time was 11-day notice, so it wasn’t enough time but it was enough time to get a win. Second time he got injured so he had to lay back, so it put him back as far as being in shape and being accurate in timing. And people were thinking, ‘oh, he’s gonna come back and be better,’ no, they don’t see the outcome of it, the true outcome of what happened…These guys are true warriors, they go out there and still fight. So as far as McGregor coming out in the cage if he fights Nathan and Nathan gets in shape, it should be a good fight, a great fight, because Nathan can move and he’s got great footwork and he can throw a lot of combinations and make McGregor miss, counter off of it, use his reach.
A fan-made video has been released of a fantasy contest, between McGregor and Mayweather, in the octagon for an MMA fight.
Epic Rematch : Conor McGregor vs Floyd Mayweather II
Posted by Shady00018 on Thursday, August 31, 2017
McGregor parties at wedding of childhood friend Tom Devitt, in Ibiza, still sporting a shiny black eye from the fight. He is accompanied by his mother, Margaret, and partner, Dee.
McGregor congratulates his friends and looks forward to the party.
Malignaggi calls McGregor a ‘punk’ and says he’s capable of stopping the Irishman in the boxing ring.
Conor gets stopped by me. If Conor doesn’t get stopped by me, I should get penalized at least a portion of my purse if I don’t stop this guy…I think once you get the hang of it, once you get the hang of what Conor is doing, you start to break him. And as I’ve said from the start, this guy is not the bravest guy in the world. There’s a lot of punk in this guy. He’s a loud guy, he’s a brash guy. Honestly, in MMA he has the advantage most of the time, because he is talented. You have to give him that, he is talented. But a fighter is a fighter when faced with adversity. Not in round one, not when he’s talking at a press conference.
In a poignant scene from the final episode from All Access, McGregor is in the changing room post-fight, being consoled by his family and friends, when he apologises to White for his defeat.
White refuses to accept:
Sorry? Dude, I’m ecstatic!
According to ESPN, Mayweather approached a sports betting vendor in Las Vegas around 3.30pm – just hours before the main event – and tried to stake around £310,000 on the fight ending inside 9.5 rounds. The odds were 1/2, meaning he would have make a £155,000 profit, but the bet was not placed. Concerns over the legality of a fighter betting on anything other than a straight win reportedly caused a delay. He then tried to bet on himself to win by knockout but was again frustrated by the delay and left without staking any money. Source:
He was p*ssed.
Aldo speaks about the series of laugh-crying emojis he tweeted in the moments after McGregor lost to Mayweather.
First of all, I didn’t even watch the fight. I was at a football game… I don’t know. I have people who take care of my social media… You know every athlete has people who handle their social media – who work their social media.
And the ex-champ says he wasn’t particularly surprised when he heard the result.
Conor doesn’t have good cardio, and (they) knew he’s not used to boxing. Mayweather was closed up, just waiting for the time to pounce. The guy hadn’t fought for two years. He didn’t even prepare for the fight.
Asked if thought McGregor won a moral victory by lasting ten rounds:
Of course not. Moral? First of all, you try to prove that with someone who’s almost 41, who’s been away (from the sport). Of course, it was a money fight. A moral victory would have been taking on an active boxer, a champion, and then fought him. And then you’d see how he would barely last a round. Because it’s an entirely different sport. We need to put ourselves in our places. I’m an MMA athlete. I can’t go tomorrow and say I’m going to do muay Thai in Thailand with a Thai fighter, because I can punch and kick well. There’s no way. Each one in their places. I respect martial arts, so I put myself in my place. I don’t see a moral victory.
Coach Roddy appears on ‘The Late Late Show’, to talk about how difficult it was for McGregor and the whole team when the fight didn’t go their way.
I was heartbroken. I don’t only work with Conor, Conor’s a good friend of mine. We’re training partners and sparring partners for many years, and then I took up the coaching role. When you see what somebody puts in — the amount of hours he puts in, the amount of sacrifices he makes and the team makes — when you see all of that, and you’re all working together for one moment, for that night, and it doesn’t go your way sometimes — it’s heartbreaking. I was very upset over the fight, because I know how bad he wants it, and I know how bad the team wanted it.”
McGregor’s former sparring partner, Malignaggi, doesn’t think McGregor made a valiant effort against Mayweather.
The guy has no balls. When you back him into a corner he’s a little pussycat. He quit. If you don’t throw a punch for over a minute, you quit buddy. You can explain it any way you want … you quit buddy, you absolutely did.
Malignaggi, who left McGregor’s team over a series of leaked photos from their sparring sessions, then went on to reiterate his desire to settle his differences with McGregor in the boxing ring.
I don’t like the guy, I never will like the guy, personally I think he’s a scumbag. Just the fact I could sink my fist into his face — I would love that. The fact I could get him looking like the sissy that he is — I would love that.
Darragh O’Carrol, a former ringside doctor and emergency physician, gives his professional opinion on stopping the fight, Saturday night. McGregor claimed after the fight that he was more fatigued than hurt, but O’Carrol agreed with referee Robert Byrd’s decision to call an end to the fight at the moment he did. O’Carrol explained that Byrd likely didn’t call off the fight due to signs of McGregor just being tired. O’Carrol said as an Irishman, and a self-admitted McGregor fan, that he would like to believe McGregor was just fatigued in the 10th round, but, as a physician and former ringside doctor, he believes the fight was stopped at the right time and for the right reasons.
Byrd’s calculation to call a stoppage was likely not based on signs of fatigue, but rather signs of traumatic brain injury. Ataxia, or dizziness and loss of balance, is one of the hallmarks of concussion, a type of mild traumatic brain injury. Fatigue may cause sluggish and slow movements, but does not cause the imbalance and poor coordination exhibited by McGregor in the 10th round. Being wobbly, in the setting of pugilistic trauma, will always be treated as the result of head trauma and not as fatigue. To let a fighter continue on would be grossly negligent. Continuing the fight would have put McGregor at risk for continued head trauma, [or] repetitive damage leading to a severe traumatic brain injury such as a brain bleed. It wouldn’t be the first time a boxer experienced this, as was tragically the case just this year to young Daniel Franco, who required emergency neurosurgery to save his life.
