He may have exaggerated the facts slightly but Conor McGregor had a point.
The UFC post-fight press conference featured a last but definitely not least tour-de-force from Conor McGregor.
Not long after Dana White had confirmed every UFC pay-per-view and Madison Square Garden box-office record had been smashed, and Tyron Woodley suggested a welterweight title fight, McGregor strode out.
The champ champ. The UFC’s new featherweight and lightweight champion.
He basked in the spotlight, posed with his belts and then took a seat to deliver one of the most open and honest press conferences in his time as a fighter.
‘The Notorious’ spoke about his impending fatherhood, his desire for equity in the company, the hand injury he brought into the fight and his systematic destruction of dethroned 155lbs champion Eddie Alvarez.
What everybody wanted to know, however, was clear – ‘Who is next?’
Nate Diaz. Woodley. Georges St-Pierre. Nick Diaz. Khabib Nurmagomedov? That one sparked a response.
That response rings very true now that Nurmagomedov has been ruled out of an interim lightweight title defence against Tony Ferguson.
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“He’s fought once in eight years,” McGregor said.
“He ain’t fight too frequent for my liking. For me to commit to something like that, I need to see solid proof that people are gonna show up and he’s a consistent pull-out merchant. He had a good performance tonight [against Michael Johnson]. Fair play to him.
“I need to see active. I need to see activity. I need to see consistency. I need to see me. If you want me to come and change your life, if you want me to come pick you, you better have some damn reasons for me to do that.”
Nurmagomedov has fought eight times in the UFC since joining the promotion in 2012. He was out of action for two years and he did pull out of a fight against Ferguson, too, in 2015.
There has been no response from McGregor yet to the events in his division but John Kavanagh, his coach, has been active on social media.
— Coach JK (@John_Kavanagh) March 3, 2017
McGregor, he so very often predict these things.
