Conor McGregor Provides Details On His UFC Retirement

As has been his wont, Conor McGregor was online following the main event of last night’s UFC 250 pay-per-view event. It’s been a habit of McGregor’s to get on social media during high-profile UFC events and remind fans that yes, he is watching and he has opinions. Sometimes the former two-division’s champion’s actions feel as if they are designed to steal the spotlight away from the fighters who compete on the cards he comments on. Last night was one of those moments.

Not long after Amanda Nunes became the first UFC fighter to hold and defend two titles at the same time with her one-sided beating of Felicia Spencer in the main event of UFC 250, McGregor announced he was retiring from MMA. 

It was the third time in the past few years that McGregor “retired” from the sport via social media. McGregor’s tweet got a lot of attention, but that doesn’t mean many people believed that he was truly leaving the sport. 

ESPN did it’s best to give some clarity to the situation when it spoke to the Irish fighter on Sunday morning.

“The game just does not excite me, and that’s that,” McGregor said. “All this waiting around. There’s nothing happening. I’m going through opponent options, and there’s nothing really there at the minute. There’s nothing that’s exciting me.”

“They should have just kept the ball rolling. I mean, why are they pushing Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Justin Gaethje back to September? You know what’s going to happen in September, something else is going to happen in September, and that’s not going to happen. I laid out a plan and a method that was the right move, the right methods to go with. And they always want to balk at that and not make it happen or just drag it on. Whatever I say, they want to go against it to show some kind of power. They should have just done the fight — me and Justin for the interim title — and just kept the ball rolling.”

McGregor added that one reason he is allegedly walking away from the sport is because of how the UFC handled the plans he had made for 2020.

“I had my goals, my plans, the season. I had everything laid out,” McGregor said. “Obviously the world has gone bleeding bonkers at the minute. There’s (expletive) all happening at the minute. They want to throw me up and down weights and offer me stupid fights. I don’t really give a (expletive). I’m over it.”

UFC president Dana White responded to McGregor’s retirement the same way he has spoken about other fighters who have recently said they are retired, looking for more money or planning to sit things out. 

“If that’s what Conor is feeling right now — Jon Jones, Jorge Masvidal, I feel you. It’s not like I’m going, ‘Holy (expletive), this is crazy, this is nuts,’” White said. “Nothing is crazy and nuts right now, because everything is crazy and nuts right now, on a certain level. I totally understand it and get it.”