Conor McGregor isn’t too fond of Nevada these days.
UFC President Dana White spoke about “The Notorious” one’s disdain towards the Nevada Athletic Commission for fining him in the amount of $150,000, or five percent of his fight purse, for the bottle-throwing incident with Nate Diaz at the UFC 202 pre-fight press conference during his appearance on “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd on Wednesday.
According to the UFC boss, McGregor is claiming he wants nothing to do with Las Vegas anymore, and has made it clear to him that he no longer wants to fight in the state of Nevada.
“Conor McGregor hit me yesterday and said, ‘I don’t ever want to fight in Nevada again. Ever,'” White told Cowherd. “How does that make sense for the state of Nevada? That you’re gonna try to fine this kid and Nate that kind of money, it just makes people not want to come fight in our state. And that’s not a good thing.”
As White continued, he explained that in the case of McGregor, if he is serious, he doesn’t actually need to fight in Las Vegas if he chooses not to, as he is clearly a big enough international and domestic star that he can sell out venues anywhere in the world.
“Guess what?” White said. “Conor McGregor doesn’t need Nevada. He can fight anywhere. He can fight in Iowa, OK? We can put his fight on an island off the coast of anywhere. This makes no sense for the state. It’s terrible.”
White also shared his opinion that the $150,000 amount was a bit hefty considering the offense.
“I’m not thrilled about it when it happened,” White said. “We did the best we could to contain it at the time. But throwing water bottles? C’mon.”
Conor McGregor returns to the Octagon against Eddie Alvarez in a champion vs. champion bout with the UFC Lightweight Championship on the line in the main event of UFC 205: Alvarez vs. McGregor.
UFC 205 takes place on Saturday, November 12th from the world-famous Madison Square Garden arena in New York City. Join us here on 11/12 for live coverage of the pay-per-view.
H/T to MMAFighting.com for transcribing the above Dana White quotes from his appearance on “The Herd.”
Conor McGregor isn’t too fond of Nevada these days.
UFC President Dana White spoke about “The Notorious” one’s disdain towards the Nevada Athletic Commission for fining him in the amount of $150,000, or five percent of his fight purse, for the bottle-throwing incident with Nate Diaz at the UFC 202 pre-fight press conference during his appearance on “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd on Wednesday.
According to the UFC boss, McGregor is claiming he wants nothing to do with Las Vegas anymore, and has made it clear to him that he no longer wants to fight in the state of Nevada.
“Conor McGregor hit me yesterday and said, ‘I don’t ever want to fight in Nevada again. Ever,'” White told Cowherd. “How does that make sense for the state of Nevada? That you’re gonna try to fine this kid and Nate that kind of money, it just makes people not want to come fight in our state. And that’s not a good thing.”
As White continued, he explained that in the case of McGregor, if he is serious, he doesn’t actually need to fight in Las Vegas if he chooses not to, as he is clearly a big enough international and domestic star that he can sell out venues anywhere in the world.
“Guess what?” White said. “Conor McGregor doesn’t need Nevada. He can fight anywhere. He can fight in Iowa, OK? We can put his fight on an island off the coast of anywhere. This makes no sense for the state. It’s terrible.”
White also shared his opinion that the $150,000 amount was a bit hefty considering the offense.
“I’m not thrilled about it when it happened,” White said. “We did the best we could to contain it at the time. But throwing water bottles? C’mon.”
Conor McGregor returns to the Octagon against Eddie Alvarez in a champion vs. champion bout with the UFC Lightweight Championship on the line in the main event of UFC 205: Alvarez vs. McGregor.
UFC 205 takes place on Saturday, November 12th from the world-famous Madison Square Garden arena in New York City. Join us here on 11/12 for live coverage of the pay-per-view.
H/T to MMAFighting.com for transcribing the above Dana White quotes from his appearance on “The Herd.”
Jon Jones tested positive for cocaine earlier this week! You know what that means, right? If you guessed an overhaul of drug testing procedures and increased transparency from the Nevada Athletic Commission and the UFC, you’d be wrong. No, what this significant development in MMA means is another Wanderlei Silva pro wrestling-style shoot promo.
He set his sights on the NAC, bashing them for ruining Jones’ reputation and for being the bumbling, corrupt idiots we all sort of know they are (transcript via MMA Fighting). Read it after the jump.
Jon Jones tested positive for cocaine earlier this week! You know what that means, right? If you guessed an overhaul of drug testing procedures and increased transparency from the Nevada Athletic Commission and the UFC, you’d be wrong. No, what this significant development in MMA means is another Wanderlei Silva pro wrestling-style shoot promo.
He set his sights on the NAC, bashing them for ruining Jones’ reputation and for being the bumbling, corrupt idiots we all sort of know they are (transcript via MMA Fighting):
Let’s analyze what happened to Jon Jones. [The NAC is] saying that test shouldn’t have been done out of competition and that it was an accident. So they went to test him and accidentally tested for cocaine. But now Jon Jones’ champion image is damaged. So what’s the commission going to do about this? They go, ‘ah, we don’t know, we’ll see what’s going to happen.’ Are there laws or are there no laws? Sometimes there are laws and sometimes there are none? There are no protocols to be followed? Where are the laws? Who voted for them? Who implements them? You are lost, you don’t know what you are doing.
Good points. He’d go on to make a few more…
This sport has to be regulated. The way that it’s going can’t continue. This commission is a mess. They don’t know what they are [doing]. You can punish or not? There’s no set punishment, there’s no set testing system. You guys have to be professionals, you ask for fighters to be professionals when you are not. How can you want to put people on trial without laws? Without laws that apply equally to all? Everybody knows the UFC is a business. They put on fights to make money, and in those regards they’re not wrong. But the entity that implements the laws for the athletes, the entity that punishes athletes and controls their lives yet doesn’t know what they’re doing, just can’t be. It’s a commission that doesn’t follow protocols or laws. So you better clean up this mess. Instead of regulating it, you are damaging the sport.
While Silva’s words have truth to them (hell, we agree with pretty much all of them) they sound awfully strange coming from the guy who literally ran away from a piss-cup-carrying commission member.
And Silva has released scathing videos like this before, one on fighter sponsorships and the other on fighter pay. Being a disgraced fighter and habitually releasing scathing videos is putting Silva dangerously close to fringe MMA weirdo territory — think Luke Cummo and Dan Quinn. And once you become one of those guys, there’s no coming back. You’re condemned to signing autographs in third-rate pizza places for all eternity.
We still want to love you, Wandy, you’re just making it harder and harder. So instead of latching onto the popular cause of the minute every few weeks, please figure out how to escape your UFC contract so we can watch you murder professional wrestlers in Bellator.
At UFC 178, Tim Kennedy was on the cusp of knocking out Yoel Romero in the dying seconds of round two, after he had endured a difficult 10 minutes against the Cuban powerhouse in their main card battle. Kennedy, who also grabbed Romero’s gloves to land several uppercuts, had “Soldier of God” in a world of hurt, as he continued to pounce on his adversary. The horn saved Romero, and as referee “Big” John McCarthy separated both fighters and ordered them to their respective corners, Romero looked as if he had spent three days in an afterhours club hopped up on Molly.
He had no clue where he was, sat on his stool, and looked quite petrified as he mumbled words to his coaches.
As both fighters were summoned for the third and final round, Romero just sat there while his coaches moved like tortoises exiting the cage. Despite his corner men stalling, Romero was still on his stool, with too much Vaseline on him. His corner proceeded to wipe it off, while the American walked around frustrated. As Joe Rogan went ballistic, the fight wasn’t called off, a point wasn’t even deducted, and more so, “Big” John McCarthy didn’t do a damn thing about it.
Seconds into the third round, Romero dropped Kennedy, pummeled him to hell and back, and stood over his bloody foe in victory after being awarded with the stoppage victory.
Pretty strange, huh?
Now, this reeks of controversy from both sides. Kennedy’s blatant glove-grabbing maybe wasn’t worthy of disqualification, yet Romero on his stool was pretty atrocious. Even if the fighter has too much Vaseline on him, which according to Dana White at the post-fight presser, was the promotion’s fault because it was one of their employees, he shouldn’t be chilling on the stool. But here’s the thing … were the corner men told to exit before taking the stool? Probably. However, isn’t it their job to actually take the stool?
Take a look at the confrontation between both fighters backstage, courtesy of a Vine post (props to MMA Fighting for the link) after the jump.
(Photo via Getty)
At UFC 178, Tim Kennedy was on the cusp of knocking out Yoel Romero in the dying seconds of round two, after he had endured a difficult 10 minutes against the Cuban powerhouse in their main card battle. Kennedy, who also grabbed Romero’s gloves to land several uppercuts, had “Soldier of God” in a world of hurt, as he continued to pounce on his adversary. The horn saved Romero, and as referee “Big” John McCarthy separated both fighters and ordered them to their respective corners, Romero looked as if he had spent three days in an afterhours club hopped up on Molly.
He had no clue where he was, sat on his stool, and looked quite petrified as he mumbled words to his coaches.
As both fighters were summoned for the third and final round, Romero just sat there while his coaches moved like tortoises exiting the cage. Despite his corner men stalling, Romero was still on his stool, with too much Vaseline on him. His corner proceeded to wipe it off, while the American walked around frustrated. As Joe Rogan went ballistic, the fight wasn’t called off, a point wasn’t even deducted, and more so, “Big” John McCarthy didn’t do a damn thing about it.
Seconds into the third round, Romero dropped Kennedy, pummeled him to hell and back, and stood over his bloody foe in victory after being awarded with the stoppage victory.
Pretty strange, huh?
Now, this reeks of controversy from both sides. Kennedy’s blatant glove-grabbing maybe wasn’t worthy of disqualification, yet Romero on his stool was pretty atrocious. Even if the fighter has too much Vaseline on him, which according to Dana White at the post-fight presser, was the promotion’s fault because it was one of their employees, he shouldn’t be chilling on the stool. But here’s the thing … were the corner men told to exit before taking the stool? Probably. However, isn’t it their job to actually take the stool?
Let’s take a look at the confrontation between both fighters backstage, courtesy of a Vine post (props to MMA Fighting for the link):
We’re probably set for more footage shortly, via video blogs or UFC Embedded. Also, Kennedy found the exact ruling from the Nevada Athletic Commission regarding recovery in between rounds, and shared it via Twitter:
The American plans to file a complain with the commission in the upcoming days, according to MMA Junkie. It remains to be seen if the commission will act on this matter, or if it’s just an unfortunate circumstance that won’t be fixed altogether.
So immediate rematch of last night’s “Fight of The Night?” Nah, I think we’re good. Potential change to a no-contest? Maybe … just maybe (doubt it, though).
