Swift, firm denial from McGregor’s camp.
How would Jessie Vargas, a boxer with no connections to Conor McGregor’s team, have knowledge of a knockout that occurred behind closed doors in a sparring session?
As a mark of respect to the craft, all fighters tend to keep what happens in sparring to themselves and it just didn’t seem likely that one of the sparring partners that ‘The Notorious’ had drafted in to prepare him for his upcoming Floyd Mayweather challenge would have leaked information.
Last weekend, former WBO welterweight champion Vargas claimed to have intel that McGregor had been knocked unconscious in recent weeks.
Few fight fans believed his claim and even Mayweather announced that he wouldn’t be taking Vargas at his word.
“My take is if I ain’t seen no footage, I don’t believe it,” Mayweather told ABS CBN News.
“We’re working on Vargas to sign with Mayweather Promotions,” he added, “so we’ve been communicating.
“But everything is just rumour until I see it. I have to see it with my own eyes.”
The Telegraph has an exclusive with a member of the Irishman’s management team, who has rubbished Vargas’ claims. The spokesperson commented:
“The guy mentioned by Jessie Vargas is Brandon Rios, not Brad Wheeler. Neither have sparred with Conor.”
Didn’t even have the name right. Vargas was slinging accusations and appears to be way off.
Rios, meanwhile, has also moved to pay short shrift to the talk of him being the fighter who knocked out the Dubliner.
“The world’s gone crazy,” he told ES News.
“My phone’s been blowing up. I’ve been getting texts messages and calls about this. I’ve never met McGregor, and I don’t know who he is.”
This is not the first time McGregor’s camp has been forced to deny sparring knock-out rumours. There had been claims the Dubliner had been sparked in the lead-up to the Eddie Alvarez fight but training partner Dillon Dannis strongly refuted them on The MMA Hour.
