The Takedown | UFC: Conor McGregor vs Jorge Masvidal on Fight Island solves a lot of problems right now
- UFC president Dana White has a growing mutiny on his hands, and getting some of his marquee talent back in the Octagon is priority No 1
- McGregor vs Masvidal – albeit a dream fight in front of a sold out arena – could and should take place to quiet a few qualms within the world of MMA
There’s an unusually high amount of moaning and complaining coming from the UFC’s stable of fighters these days.
These are unprecedented times. We are in the middle of a global pandemic, but the UFC is the outlier, now five cards in and counting as every other major sporting league sits on the sidelines. Dana White pulling off what many thought was a fool’s errand now looks like a miracle, and he’s making up for lost ground pumping out shows at will.
For some reason this hasn’t seemed to quiet the outspoken behaviour of some of his more well-known draws. Light heavyweight champion Jon “Bones” Jones has been in a war of words with White for weeks, apparently wanting to fight heavyweight Francis Ngannou for “Deontay Wilder money”. Jones has now walked away from his belt (according to his always entertaining Twitter account), and White seems OK with calling his bluff and letting the legend go stir crazy.
Then you have the sport’s biggest superstar of all-time, Conor McGregor, who stole the thunder from an excellent UFC 250 June 7 card by tweeting his “retirement” mere hours after Amanda Nunes and Felicia Spencer went five rounds for the women’s featherweight title. While Nunes retained her belt in convincing fashion, the Canadian Spencer scored some serious points for hanging around all of 25 minutes, but the oxygen got sucked out of the room with one tweet from one really famous Irishman.
McGregor’s retirement is highly unlikely to stick, as many MMA pundits think it’s just Conor being Conor, trying to both keep the limelight on himself, and get what he wants. What McGregor wants right now is pretty clear, he wants to fight. White seems to think the best thing for McGregor is to sit tight and wait for the winner of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Justin Gaethje for the lightweight belt later this year, which would mean “Notorious” wouldn’t be back in the Octagon for at least another seven months, if all goes according to plan.