Dana White explains why the UFC offered Conor McGregor a co-main event slot

Former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor made headlines last night when he announced his retirement from mixed martial arts on Twitter.

Prior to his newly announced retirement, it was reported that Conor McGregor was in talks to fight Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone in July.

That rumor gained even more traction when UFC commentator Joe Rogan said that a fight between “Cowboy” and “Mystic Mac” was a done deal.

Unfortunately, the proposed McGregor vs Cerrone matchup failed to come to fruition because the promotion could not come to terms with the Irish star.

The UFC allegedly wanted to book the proposed matchup to serve as the co-main event for the promotions international fight week card, something McGregor was not interested in.

Why the fight was slated to be the co-main event was an easy decision according to UFC President, Dana White.

The brash UFC boss explained that the promotion was hoping to book Daniel Cormier vs. Brock Lesnar as the main event for July, and have Conor vs Cowboy serve as the co-headliner.

“Yes, that did happen. Every time I deal with Conor, there’s always something. There’s always something to deal with and we get it figured out,” White told the Barstool Sports “My Mom’s Basement” podcast this week. (Transcript MMANews).

“Let me ask you a question — we were going to do, the fight that was going to be on the card with him was probably going to be the heavyweight championship. Should that be the co-main event?”

White believes he would receive backlash from fans for having McGregor as the main event ahead of the heavyweight title fight.

“The more people I hear from, the fans and the media and all this s—t, if I end up putting Conor McGregor not as a champion on the main event, I guess I don’t have to listen to any bulls—t do I?” White stated.

“So if I didn’t do it this way and just made him the main event with no title, no nothing, everybody would go f—king mental and go nuts and start chirping about ‘oh he gets favoritism’. 100-percent.”

Do you think Conor McGregor vs Donald Cerrone is worthy of a PPV main event slot? Sound off in the comment section, PENN Nation!

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/26/2019