Conor McGregor discusses ‘publicized civil war’ with UFC

UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor spoke with ESPN on Sunday, where he opened up about his ‘publicized civil war’ with the UFC over UFC 200. Here is what “Mystic Mac” had to say (as transcribed by MMAFighting.com):

“I was in a time where I was like, figuring out something,” McGregor said. “I didn’t just shut out and say no to everything. I just wanted to do reasonable media, and then, hey, all of a sudden, ‘Conor, it’s three months from the fight, we’ve got to drag you (onto) 40-hour flights to come and do a runaround, New York, Vegas, California, 70 press conferences, 70 talk shows, adverts, all of this,’ and it’s like, I already made you $400 million last week. That was only last week, that fight. I need to get right.

“That’s how it all came about. I just wanted to focus and I was deep in the process, and especially at that particular moment, I just wanted a little bit more time. I didn’t shut it off completely. Reasonable media, is what I said. I said I would do New York. I said I would do everything else after that. I just needed another little bit to set myself, and then the lack of communication, they weren’t having it. They were trying to push back on me, I was trying to push back on them, and look, it blew up then.”

He continued:

“I’ll tell you what, it blew up,” McGregor said. “I was just kind of having fun at the start. It was kind of half-hearted, and then it just went [crazy], and now all of a sudden you’re off UFC 200, and I was like, ‘alright, well f*ck you too then.’ It was fun. Seeing it all blow up like that, it was amusing for a while.

“There were times when I was … seeing the press conferences take place, and I was like, ah, I should’ve just jumped on the damn flight. I should’ve just stuck it out and went with it. But sometimes you’ve gotta do what’s right for you, and not do what’s right for everybody else — and especially if you’ve done what’s right for everybody else a million times over, you should have the right to be able to do what’s right for you sometimes. That’s what I felt.”

The UFC is currently working on booking Conor McGregor in a rematch against Nate Diaz at UFC 202, which takes place later this summer.

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