At the end of the London leg of the Mayweather vs. McGregor world tour, Showtime presenters got excited with what they thought was an exclusive – Conor McGregor wants to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov on his UFC return.
Fact is, we’ve been hearing about this fight for the past fortnight. UFC president Dana White is telling anyone who will listen about it.
White is trying to generate hype for the fight, which would be for the UFC lightweight title, and he feels Nurmagomedov is the box-office draw. It is why – for an unfair reason – ‘The Eagle’ is now looking beyond Tony Ferguson despite missing their UFC 209 headliner after being rushed to hospital.
McGregor insists he will keep his word and return to the UFC but he won’t be keen on fighting “bums”. Bad news, so, for the likes of Ferguson and Max Holloway. Fine fighters, sure, but not big draws.
The Dubliner is set to make north of $100m from his boxing encounter with Floyd Mayweather Jr so he will now expect a lot, lot more from the UFC. It was something White seemed open to when he spoke to reporters in London. He said:
“We’ll make him happy, he’ll fight anyone.
“He’s played an important role in this company. He’s always been a stand-up guy. When we’ve been in bad situations, he has taken fights. He will fight anybody, anywhere, anytime… He’s the unicorn.”
As for McGregor, he had a different take on his comeback.
Asked by MMA Junkie about facing Nurmagomedov on December 30, he said:
“It’s certainly one of the things I would like to do. Whether it’s next, I don’t know.
“I don’t even know how close the Russia thing is. Whether Khabib can pull his shit together; he missed weight.
“There’s a few of them in the mix. A few of them need to pull their (expletive) together, though, and get interest going and get me interested. Right now I don’t actually see anything.”
“That [Nate] Diaz trilogy is also on my mind,” he added.
Diaz vs. McGregor III. It would never top Mayweather but it is enough to get excited about.
