Conor McGregor’s coach, John Kavanagh, believes it’s pointless to keep McGregor off UFC 200 because the featherweight champion wants to focus on his training camp rather than promotion for the event.
What a ride the mixed martial arts community has been on for the past week.
As we all know by now, it all started with UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor mysteriously announcing his sudden retirement via Twitter, and then UFC officials pulling the Irishman from his UFC 200 rematch against Nate Diaz. When the removal of McGregor was announced, UFC president Dana White claimed McGregor was pulled from his UFC 200 headlining slot because he refused to fly to Las Vegas to perform promotional work leading up to the mega-card.
That got some fans thinking about possible other reasons McGregor was pulled from the card, but White clarified several times it was simply because McGregor didn’t want to show up to a press conference (which occurred last week) and shoot a promo video. McGregor released a statement, explaining that believes he needs to focus more on the actual fight with Diaz, rather than promotion.
A few days went by, and McGregor hopped on Twitter once again, stating that the UFC had re-booked him against Diaz at UFC 200 and that everything was settled. It didn’t take long for White to deny McGregor’s announcement.
Phew. We’re all caught up.
On Monday’s editiion of Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, SBG Ireland head coach John Kavanagh provided his thoughts on the situation. McGregor’s coach understands that promotion is an important aspect of the fight game, but ultimately sides with McGregor’s case. Kavanagh believes it’s rather unrealistic for the organization to keep McGregor off UFC 200, likely losing quite a large amount of money by doing so as McGregor is arguably the biggest UFC star currently, simply because McGregor wants to focus on his training camp and not promotion.
“I don’t think ego is the right word, I guess standing for a point,” Kavanagh told Helwani (transcript via MMAMania.com). “At some stage you got to see that maybe it’s pointless to upset so many fans that want to see this fight and ignore the kind of numbers that are going to be brought in over, you know, a press conference. I know it’s important to a lot of people, but it does tend to be the same questions over and over. It’s not the same for Conor having to travel halfway across the world as for his opponent having to basically go down the road. Things seem to be aiming the right away, we are aiming for it and we are training for 200, so, I just hope we get some good news.”
Nevertheless, the UFC appears to be adamant on keeping McGregor off the card — no matter what other Tweets arise on the featherweight titleholder’s Twitter account. And it sounds like headliner Diaz isn’t interested in being apart of the UFC 200 festivities, either. He’s apparently headed for vacation.
UFC 200 takes place live from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on July 9. Daniel Cormier vs. Jon Jones II could serve as the evening’s main event, but nothing is official at this time.