Former UFC star Chael Sonnen believes Conor McGregor’s retirement tweet was a “big mistake” brought on by the Irishman’s desire to negotiate a new deal with the company.
The 39-year-old took part in a live question and answer session with fans on MMA World Series of Fighting’s Facebook page and gave his take on Notorious, who was withdrawn from UFC 200 after tweeting he would “retire young,” according to the BBC:
Per Jed Meshew of MMAFighting.com, Sonnen believes the timing of his announcement—coming after his loss to Nate Diaz in March—was an error on McGregor’s part:
When you get beat up by a guy, and then you agree to fight him again, and then you pull out, it really doesn’t matter after that. And the miscalculation here by Conor is he’s not gonna be telling his side. He’s gonna be telling his side to whoever.com. He’s not gonna be telling it on FS1 or ESPN or anywhere else. Those days are gone. This was a big mistake.
Fellow UFC fighter Chris Wade seemingly demonstrated Sonnen’s point with his reaction:
McGregor sent the tweet on Monday:
Sonnen stated he did not “have any inside info on this” but was confident he is “98 per cent right if not 100” per cent correct in his assertion McGregor was attempting to renegotiate his contract with the UFC, based on his own experience of working in the sport. He added:
Conor had a deal with the UFC. And Conor’s now going back and trying to renegotiate and it just doesn’t work that way. It can’t. You can’t write everything down, you can’t get your contracts done all the time in this business. There’s 500 guys under contract. There’s not even that many employees in the UFC. I think there’s like 340 employees with 500 fighters. There’s 53 shows scheduled for a year that only has 52 weeks in the year. You have to be able to make a phone call, count on whatever the guy says, hang up the phone and that’s the end of it. You have to be able to do that.
Conor has a contract, he made a deal, somewhere he didn’t sign it. Let the promotion go out, let the money get spent and then realized ‘I’ve got the upper hand. Now I can come back and renegotiate. Who’s going to tell me no when the advertising is already done?’ That’s what he did. Guaranteed.
According to Sports Illustrated, McGregor had hinted at such a move prior to his fight with Diaz:
Bleacher Report UK suggested his future could lie in wrestling:
MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani commented on the speculation surrounding the 27-year-old’s future but believes until McGregor himself addresses the subject further there’s little to be determined:
Indeed, while there appears to be widespread feeling he will fight again—even UFC president Dana White told ESPN’s SportsCenter he did not know if McGregor’s retirement was genuine, per MMA Junkie’s Matt Erickson—the fighter is the only one who knows for sure either way.
As for the effect it may have on his reputation upon a potential return to the Octagon, the announcement coming in the wake of a defeat could see him take a hit if others feel as Wade does.
However, as noted by ESPN’s Darren Rovell and Brett Okamoto, McGregor holds an arguably unrivalled status within the sport and perhaps outside of it as well:
With that being the case, any comeback fight—particularly if he does fulfil his rematch with Diaz—will generate an incredible amount of publicity.
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