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Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White has shot down yet another request from Conor McGregor, recently telling the combat sports media that he will not book a Dustin Poirier rematch for Jan. 23 in Texas, despite unwavering support from Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones.
“I’m a real admirer of his,” Jones told 105.3 The Fan, revealing he was “very open” to the idea of hosting a “Notorious” UFC fight. “He’s one of the neatest individuals I think I’ve met. Period. It would be quite a day for AT&T Stadium to have him.”
Not happening.
“We’ve had a very good relationship with Jones for a long time and we’ve talked about Dallas Texas stadium for a while,” White said. ”I’m not going into any arena where we’re going to fill a quarter of the arena or half the arena. So when crowds are ready to come back, we’ll do crowds again.”
That leaves two options: UFC APEX or Fight Island.
Not having fans in attendance means not having the $18 million that McGregor can generate with a live gate. While half a crowd would be better than no crowd, a mass infection from a UFC event could cause a landslide of problems for the MMA powerhouse.
“When we all leave ‘Fight Island’ and go home, we’re literally days away from the election,” White continued. “I truly believe that the election’s going to have a huge impact on all the bullshit that we’ve been dealing with for the last however many months. I’m hoping that a lot of this is going to go away after the election.”
The McGregor-Poirier rematch may go away after the election as well, if “Notorious” can’t get the promotion to meet some of his pre-fight demands.