Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has finally been able to entice former lightweight champion, Conor McGregor, to come back to mixed martial arts (MMA) and compete against current 155-pound kingpin Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Fortunately for promotion president, Dana White, it did not take equity in the world’s largest combat sports promotion to get the deal done — despite these demands — but it probably ended up costing him about the same.
“He’s not a part owner,” White told reporters on Tuesday (via MMAnytt.com) “He might as well be though. He’s making so much fucking money. He’s making so much fucking money he might as well be a part owner.”
McGregor can pretty much ask for whatever he wants and with good reason. “Notorious” holds the record for the top three highest-grossing pay-per-view (PPV) events in history (like this one) and saved the promotion’s 2017 fight campaign with his Floyd Mayweather fight last summer.
That sort of star power is the reason why so many other fighters want to compete on the same fight card as McGregor, particularly in the co-main event, but it doesn’t always work out that way and eventually leads to chronic disgruntlement.
McGregor and Nurmagomedov collide in the UFC 229 main event on Oct. 6 in Las Vegas.