Even when Conor McGregor is literally doing nothing, his name gets brought up.
The Conor McGregor-shaped cloud hanging over the blockbuster UFC 223 event is difficult to ignore.
Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov are fighting to succeed his 155 lb throne on April 7. To add to the intrigue, Artem Lobov fighting Alex Caceres on the preliminary card means that fans will be eagerly anticipating McGregor’s appearance as a spectator. Plus, if Dana White had his way, McGregor’s return to the Octagon would be against the winner of the main event.
Although Ferguson and Nurmagomdov are trying to distance themselves from ‘The Notorious,’ he is still very much linked to their event.
MMA doesn't get much better than #UFC223's main event https://t.co/eeONWMRqvw
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) March 25, 2018
Talking trash
The UFC 223 conference call took place on Wednesday night and the two lightweights ran the show. They completely dominated proceedings with their heated discussion that involved more talking over each other than well-constructed debate. Here is a list of some of the things they didn’t see eye-to-eye on:
- Who’s going to win the fight (of course)
- How the fight was going to be finished.
- Whether Ferguson is the undisputed or interim champion (to be fair, who knows?)
- The shape Edson Barboza and Michael Johnson were in for their loss to Nurmagomedov.
- How comprehensible Ferguson’s grasp of the English language is.
- Whether or not Ferguson is humble.
- Who won Nurmagomedov’s fight against Gleison Tibau.
- Whether Nurmagomedov was allowed to talk without Ferguson’s permission or not.
- Whether Nurmagomedov was allowed to finish his point with Ferguson’s permission or not.
- Ferguson’s age.
You can see the spirit drain from their faces https://t.co/VIJxOzFYXT
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 11, 2018
McGregor the peacemaker…almost
Remarkably, when Conor McGregor received his first mention, the two men found something they could agree on. When asked if the winner would be the undisputed UFC lightweight champion, Nurmagomedov responded, “I think everybody believe this.”
Ferguson backed up ‘the Eagle’s claims with a “That’s right, tell ‘em.” Unfortunately, adding, “I’m the fucking champ,” only set things off again.
“No, you interim champ. Be humble, bro. You interim champ. Be humble, boy. You interim champ, you not official champ. You still interim. You have fake belt. Tony, you have fake belt. Sell it. Sell it and make some money.”
And then Ferguson fired back.
“Fake belt? That shit looks real to me. It’s shiny. You’ve got the fake belt because everybody hands ‘em to you. All those belts that you’ve got, and people floating your boat and this Reebok sponsorships, that’s the shit I don’t give a fuck about. And that’s one thing that you’ve got me wrong.”
They kept doing this for roughly an hour until the conference call came to an end. No really, that’s how long this back-and-forth lasted.
