After much speculation, Irish UFC champion Conor McGregor confirmed yesterday that he has not retired from the UFC. On Thursday evening McGregor had tweeted from his official Twitter account that he had decided to retire young.
Read more: Conor McGregor after training in Iceland: “No, I'm retired. Fuck interviews”
Following the tweet, Dana White, UFC’s president, announced he had decided to pulled McGregor from his rematch with Nate Diaz in July because of his reluctance to promote the fight. According to TMZ, White and the UFC had offered to fly the fighter and his team to every press conference on a private jet and to ship out “every single piece of his gym equipment from Iceland to Vegas for this weekend's media event”. TMZ’s sources claim that the UFC was willing to set up a gym identical to that in Icelandic MMA club Mjölnir, which is where McGregor has been training alongside Icelandic MMA fighter Gunnar Nelson for the past week.
Back in the land of Ice for some good training at Mjolnir!! #TheIceViking pic.twitter.com/zXKy3vN6Qv
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) 18 April 2016
Read more: Ryan Gosling wanted to open a Mjölnir gym in LA
Events took a sudden turn yesterday when McGregor retracted his previous statement in a lengthy Facebook post, explaining that he had “become lost in the game of promotion and forgot about the art of fighting“.
“There comes a time when you need to stop handing out flyers and get back to the damn shop,“ McGregor wrote. “With the right adjustments and the right focus, I will finish what I started in that last fight. I will not do this if I am back on the road handing out flyers again.
“I will always play the game and play it better than anybody, but just for this one, where I am coming off a loss, I asked for some leeway where I can just train and focus. I did not shut down all media requests. I simply wanted a slight adjustment. But it was denied.
“There had been $10m allocated for the promotion of this event is what they told me. So as a gesture of goodwill, I went and not only saved that 10 million dollars in promotion money, I then went and tripled it for them.
“And all with one tweet.
“Keep that 10 mill to promote the other bums that need it. My shows are good.
I must isolate myself now. I am facing a taller, longer and heavier man. I need to prepare correctly this time.”
Read more: Icelandic MMA club Mjölnir proud to fight like a girl
After much speculation, Irish UFC champion Conor McGregor confirmed yesterday that he has not retired from the UFC. On Thursday evening McGregor had tweeted from his official Twitter account that he had decided to retire young.
Read more: Conor McGregor after training in Iceland: “No, I'm retired. Fuck interviews”
Following the tweet, Dana White, UFC’s president, announced he had decided to pulled McGregor from his rematch with Nate Diaz in July because of his reluctance to promote the fight. According to TMZ, White and the UFC had offered to fly the fighter and his team to every press conference on a private jet and to ship out “every single piece of his gym equipment from Iceland to Vegas for this weekend's media event”. TMZ’s sources claim that the UFC was willing to set up a gym identical to that in Icelandic MMA club Mjölnir, which is where McGregor has been training alongside Icelandic MMA fighter Gunnar Nelson for the past week.
Back in the land of Ice for some good training at Mjolnir!! #TheIceViking pic.twitter.com/zXKy3vN6Qv
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) 18 April 2016
Read more: Ryan Gosling wanted to open a Mjölnir gym in LA
Events took a sudden turn yesterday when McGregor retracted his previous statement in a lengthy Facebook post, explaining that he had “become lost in the game of promotion and forgot about the art of fighting“.
“There comes a time when you need to stop handing out flyers and get back to the damn shop,“ McGregor wrote. “With the right adjustments and the right focus, I will finish what I started in that last fight. I will not do this if I am back on the road handing out flyers again.
“I will always play the game and play it better than anybody, but just for this one, where I am coming off a loss, I asked for some leeway where I can just train and focus. I did not shut down all media requests. I simply wanted a slight adjustment. But it was denied.
“There had been $10m allocated for the promotion of this event is what they told me. So as a gesture of goodwill, I went and not only saved that 10 million dollars in promotion money, I then went and tripled it for them.
“And all with one tweet.
“Keep that 10 mill to promote the other bums that need it. My shows are good.
I must isolate myself now. I am facing a taller, longer and heavier man. I need to prepare correctly this time.”
Read more: Icelandic MMA club Mjölnir proud to fight like a girl
