Former UFC champ Rich Fraklin on UFC vs. Conor McGregor: ‘It’s kind of like disciplining a child’

The UFC made a big statement when they pulled Conor McGregor off the UFC 200 card earlier this month.

Former UFC middleweight champion and current ONE Championship vice president Rich Franklin recently spoke with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto on Conor McGregor being pulled from the paramount card after refusing to take part in some media obligations to promote the event.

“Obviously, there are certain media days you have to attend, but we live in a social media age where there are creative ways to do things,” Franklin said. “I’ve been on those media tours where you’re flying from city to city and it’s not easy and it can derail your training. You just have to creatively think of doing things in ways that minimize the amount of time he has to spent out of camp. There has to be flexibility.

“Now, I don’t know the terms of Conor’s contract and I don’t know the conversations that were had but if I, as a promoter, had an agreement with a fighter to do a certain set of media and as the fighter got to thinking about it and said, ‘I don’t want to disrupt my camp,’ then we’d have an issue. The way Conor went about it, basically announcing his retirement — once the UFC pulled him and made that statement as the promoter, it’s kind of like disciplining a child. Once you’ve made a statement, consistency is probably the most important thing.”

Do you think the UFC simply wanted to make a statement to Conor McGregor and “discipline” him like Franklin commented? Share your thoughts with us on the situation.