UFC fighters don’t come much nicer and well-mannered than Frankie Edgar and Miesha Tate.
The big news that’s gripping the combat sports world is Conor McGregor getting booted off UFC 200 for refusing to show up at Friday’s press conference. Naturally enough, the fighters who actually showed up to the event in Las Vegas were all asked to give their take on the situation.
REPORT: Dana White firmly denies Conor McGregor's claim that he's fighting on #UFC200 https://t.co/lua4nCdApD
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) April 25, 2016
Former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar takes on Jose Aldo for the interim featherweight strap on UFC 200. The Answer has been campaigning for a shot at the Notorious for a long time now and he has had some strong words to say about him in the past.
However, while having his say on McGregor’s current situation to ESPN, Edgar couldn’t help but pay the Notorious a compliment before criticising his recent behaviour.
“I mean, I’m probably not doing the promotion he’s doing. He probably brought that on himself. That’s why he is where he is and why he makes the money he makes, because he does promote so well. He promotes better than anybody.”
Edgar believes that McGregor is firmly in the wrong though. Having lost four times in his professional career, Edgar knows all about the bitter taste of defeat. He wonders if McGregor would be singing the same tune if he had beaten Diaz at UFC 196.
“I just kinda…how he says he lost this last fight, so if he won his last fight would he be ok to do all this promoting? You know, we all win and we all lose, here and there. He’s got to deal with it and bounce back up.”
The New Jersey native also implied that attending the presser was really the least he could do considering he was the one who asked for the fight at the landmark event.
“He got everything he wanted. He got to fight Diaz again. He wants to fight on UFC 200… this and that. You got what you wanted, now give back.”
UFC women’s bantamweight queen Miesha Tate sympathises with McGregor’s case. Also speaking to ESPN, Cupcake confessed that she knows what he’s going through following his first UFC defeat, but disagrees with him withdrawing from the UFC 200 press conference.
“I understand he has an obsession with beating Nate right now and he wants to stay focused and stay the course at all costs. I get it, but at the end of the day it says in your contract that you have to do reasonable promotion. This is reasonable promotion.”
“We’re three months out from the fight. It’s not unreasonable to ask to come out here for a day and give some promotion. This does huge things for the fight and they filmed the commercial the other day and we actually ended up having to pick up the pieces of Conor not being there. I had to actually come back and push my training schedule to the side like scoot myself around to be able to accommodate the fact that Conor wasn’t there.”
Tate, who’s defending her belt against Amanda Nunes at UFC 200 closed off by reiterating her point.
“It is what it is, but I think Conor should be here, definitely.”
