Photo credit should read TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
After months of carefully cherry-picked interviews with UFC parter ESPN and his own Mac Life website, Conor McGregor will finally be speaking to the larger press pool during the upcoming UFC 246 Media Day.
That’s the word coming from Fighters Only reporter Jim Edwards, who notes this is the first UFC Media Day in five years that McGregor will be participating in.
Conor McGregor will be a part of #UFC246 Ultimate Media Day. This will be the first time he’s been available for a fight week media day for years. I believe, it was the Denis Siver fight in Jan 2015 when media last spoke to him during fight week outside of a press conference. pic.twitter.com/O3dVi7hYCr
— Jim Edwards (@MMA_Jim) January 10, 2020
There’s been a lot of questions leading up to his fight with Donald Cerrone that the MMA media has wanted to ask McGregor, most of them regarding his various personal and legal issues over the past year and a half. That includes multiple assault cases and two investigations into allegations of sexual assault (per the New York Times). Many wondered whether the Irish sports star would participate in any uncontrolled press interactions at all. Even the standard week-of press conference was a question mark until last week.
That press conference goes down Wednesday January 15th at the Pearl Theater inside the Palms Resort Casino, and it’s open to fans. Unclear at this time is what the format will be. Will the media be asking questions? Will fans? After the less than stellar questions fielded by fans to Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal during the UFC 244 press conference, we wouldn’t be surprised if the UFC goes for a more moderated approach. And again, we’re sure Dana White and the rest of the UFC brass don’t want the New York Times allegations to turn into the focal point of McGregor’s return.
Whatever happens on Wednesday, it looks like credentialed media will get their turn to ask McGregor what they will on Thursday January 16th at the Ultimate Media Day event. Much hay has been made about the state of MMA journalism lately and whether we’ve been largely relegated to parroting news filtered through sanctioned UFC PR channels. For all its great work covering the sport since partnering with the UFC, many still feel like we can’t expect ESPN to rock the boat too much when it comes to really sensitive news.
How things go this week should give everyone more food for thought on that subject. If, that is, McGregor even follows through on attending the media day.
What do you think of this whole situation, Maniacs?