UFC President Dana White isn’t going to let his UFC star Conor McGregor sit idle for much longer. Now, the UFC boss has confirmed the deadline for McGregor to return to action.
In a new interview with Yahoo.com, Dana White reveals that Conor McGregor must defend his UFC lightweight title by March, or he will strip him of his belt.
To date, McGregor has already been stripped of his UFC featherweight strap, so getting stripped of a second title would be nearly unprecedented.
The only fighter in UFC history to get stripped more than once is Jon Jones, and not because he didn’t defend his belts.
Conor did not fight in the UFC at all in 2017, and opted for the Boxing ring, where he earned $100 Million instead.
McGregor recently spoke out on his demands for a UFC return, stating, “We’ll see. We’re in the process of negotiations, there’s a couple of opponents across different sports now in play, there’s the boxing game also.”
The UFC superstar then explained that he wished to be a “true partner” with the UFC in his next fight.
“We’re in the contract negotiation stage. It’s got to, they’ve got to entice me now because, I came from a billion-dollar fight. I want equity, I want pay-per-view. I want to be a true partner. You have to entice me now. I want to be a partner. I want to be a promoter and I want to be a fighter for me to continue.”
White revealed earlier this week that he’s ready to move on and find new stars if Conor McGregor doesn’t want back in the cage, a shocking statement, that he now reiterated in this new interview with Yahoo Sports.
In Dana’s latest McGregor update, he stated, “As long as Conor is willing to fight by March, we could do Khabib versus Tony and then the winner fights Conor for the title. If Conor wants to sit out until next fall, then we’d have to make Khabib versus Tony for the title, not the interim title.”
Thoughts?
