MMA Fighting - Conor McGregor Announces Retirement Reaction

Episode Date: June 7, 2020

MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alex K. Lee react to Conor McGregor announcing his retirement following Saturday night's UFC 250 event.  Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Mike Hack here for MMAfighting.com reacting to some huge news tonight. Of course, UFC 250 went down in Las Vegas. A lot of great storylines came out of that event. But Cotta McGregor, as he typically does on a fight night, he took to Twitter. And instead of reacting to the events like he normally does, he instead announced his retirement. The notorious said, quote, hey guys, I've decided to retire from fighting. Thank you for all the amazing memories. What a ride it's been.

Here's a picture of myself and my mother in Las Vegas post. What of my world title wins. Pick the home of your dreams, mags. I love you. Whatever you desire, it's yours. Now, as you all are probably aware, Connor McGregor has done this before. In 2016, after being pulled from UFC 200, that's when we got the infamous, I've decided to retire young. Thanks for the cheese tweet.

And then in March of last year, right before allegations of sexual assault came out from the New York Times against Connor McGregor, and he was dealing with other charges against him and runs with the law. He said, Hey, Hey, guys, quick announcement, I've decided to retire from the sport formerly known as mixed martial arts today. I wish my old colleagues well going forward in competition. I now join my former partners on this venture already in retirement.

Proper Pina Coladas on me, fellas. And with that, let's bring in Alex K. Lee, also from MMAFighting.com. Alex, Connor McGregor, his timing,

always impeccable with these types of situations. So I guess the first question is, as you roll your eyes, do you believe anything Connor McGregor tweeted tonight? Why do we have to do this, Michael? I mean, I know why we have to do it, but really, but why? Why do we have to do this? Why must we indulge this man? Look, he's provided us much entertainment over the years. I'm not going to dispute that.

He's provided us much website traffic if we're going to lay all the cards down on the table. And I'm sure this story will provide some as well. But I just, he, why does he have to do this? Why do it after this? What was a very enjoyable UFC card, UFC, a fine event. I think we discussed in the Post-Fight show, which people can also find on YouTube and M.AFighting.com. Why spoil it? Why now?

I mean, shout-outs to moms. Great. I'm glad he tried to soften up this retirement announcement by making it, you know, this dedication to his mother. Oh, whatever. But it's, it kills me that this is news. I know it is, but it shouldn't be. He's not retiring. All right, he's going to fight again somewhere, whether it's boxing, whether it's

for the UFC or whether it's for friggin one championship. I don't know. I don't know what this guy has planned next. I don't know why he does these things. I'm not going to pretend I could get inside Connor McGregor's mind, but this retirement is BS. He's just keeping himself in the news and we're talking about it. So I guess it works. Okay.

When I first saw this tweet, Alex, I rolled my eyes like you. like everybody else who saw it, was just like, oh, here we go again. But then you kind of look at things in the landscape of the sport and in the UFC right now. And you think to yourself, this comes at a very interesting time where a lot of big name fighters have sort of dug in against the UFC about their proverbial piece of the pie. You got John Jones, UFC light heavyweight champion. He was the first one to sort of break down the fourth wall, so to speak, after negotiations reportedly fell apart for a heavyweight fight with France. in Ghanes. Bones said he wanted more money, which is quite understandable.

It's the greatest fighter of all time. He deserves more money. Dana White says that Jones wanted upwards of $30 million, said he had text messages to prove it. John refuted those claims, asked for the text to be revealed, and then also asked to be released if the UFC doesn't believe that he's worth the money that he's asking for. And then this week, and even earlier today on Sports Center, we've heard from Jorge Mazadol, who is also called out the UFC for the way they are handling the government. negotiations for his next fight with, as most would assume, Kamara Usman for the

welterweight title. Then he went on SportsCenter as well and started talking about percentages from different sports and all this stuff. So why do I mention this, Alex? Because the timing seems very interesting with everything going on right now. McGregor comes back at the beginning of 2020. He runs through Donald Seroni in 40 seconds at UFC 246. And it seems like Connor was lined up for a huge year.

He's in fights with Gaichi, he's trying to matchmake the entire welterweight division and lightweight divisions. right now. Is there a tie in here? Is Connor saying, you know what? John Jones, he's speaking up. Jorge Mazadol, he's speaking up. What if I speak up? What happens now? Yeah, Mike, of course it's related to this other unrest, this general unrest that has been, you know, brewing with all the big names you mentioned. I just wish that that these guys realized that they could have done this before. I wish that there was actually an organized effort. I mean, again, like we said, it's kind of all happening at the same time. I wish there was some way

them or their management or whoever it is that would handle these things for them. Get together. You guys are stronger together. Each of you doing these retirements and walking away is, you know what it is? It's cute. It's cute. Okay. Look, I know these guys are grown men. They're They're forceful. They're used to, you know, just achieving things and getting their way through, again, through sheer force of will. But that's not what gets it done at this level. At the corporate level, you guys got to have organization. You guys got to have a plan.

And I don't know. Maybe this is part of some plan that we don't know. But maybe they're operating on another level, Mike, that we can understand. And that they actually are doing stuff behind the scenes. And it's all going to materialize and make sense, you know, when suddenly they have, fighters unions springs up this fall or something. But guess what? I doubt it.

Okay, that's wishful thinking. That's not the way it is. As you said, it's just McBerger kind of riding this wave. He knows he's, he's always been a tastemaker. So I think the fact that he's not the one leading the charge, or maybe he is, you know, considering that he's done it twice already. I think he feels a little bit left out. So he had to do this to let people know, hey, I'm the original shot caller.

I'm the original walking away from the sport guy. So here I am again. Talk about me instead of John Jones and Harry Mosvidal and Henry Suhudo or Amanda Nunez or whoever. I'm the one making the retirement news this week. That is a great point. I would agree with you on that one. The timing was very interesting. He wants to be the, like you said, the shock collar.

And it was interesting hearing Dana White at the Post-Five Press conference because he said, Connor's mad because he wants to fight and there's nobody to fight. It seems like the options are plenty for Conner McGregor right now, but we're also in a global pandemic. And Connor McGregor gates are different than any other gate in the sport. So from a business perspective, I get the hesitation to put Connor McGregor in a fight without a live gate because they're always massive. Now, Dana White said, like, that Connor wants to fight, but who's he going to fight? Like that was the question, who is he going to fight? And Connor, like we talked to me, try to match the whole division, start a huge threat on social media about who is the greatest of all.

time. That thing blew up like crazy. So when Connor speaks, people listen. But the big question is, is he speaking to the rest of the roster right now? Is the former two division champion joining the likes of the Joneses and the Mazadals on the front lines to change some things in the UFC? I know he's done this

before. Like mostly it's Connor helping Connor. Like Brett screwed Brett. Conner, screwed Connor, all that stuff. But with the whole Nate Diaz two situation, it seemed like there's some backdoor stuff going on. They were helping each other out without actually helping each other out.

Is it possible that Connor is being unselfish here? Or is this Connor being completely selfish here? It's not being. Mike, I love the idea. Again, like I said, I love the idea that Connor suddenly wants to, wants to be the leader for this, you know, for this charge of fighter rights. But that's not the case. That's not the case. He's always been looking out for himself.

And which is fine. Look, that is his, I'm not judging him for that. It's not his responsibility at all to be, again, to lead a fighters union. If you're the guy at the top and you're making all the money you want, why would you want to fight for anybody else? You don't have to. Is it the right thing to do? Yeah, of course, it's the right thing to do. But this is business.

This is not about right and wrong. This is about making your money and getting out. So he certainly made his money. Is he getting out? That's another question. Again, that's kind of what we're discussing here, right? I do like what you brought up about kind of why, you know, one of the reasons why this retirement, at least for now, can kind of take it seriously is he doesn't want to fight in front of no crowds.

Like, can you imagine him in the small octagon in the, at the UFC apex? It would be surreal. He's just, he's not going to do that. That's crazy. Can you imagine him going to Fight Island, which by the way, today there was a reporter rumor that Fight Island could actually just be Abu Dhabi. I don't know if Connor McGregor would want to go there. That's kind of Nirmagamettev country, if you know what I mean.

I'm sure they'd embrace him as well. But that's almost hostile territory going. going to Abu Dhabi. That's a lot of of Habib fans out there. So if those are your two options for McGregor, I guess he could also when they figure out some other places to go in the U.S. But either way, like we said, zero fans, zero

gate. That is not something McGregor wants to be a part of. And just to round back to the original point, I also don't think he wants to be part of a fighter union. I just don't think it's something he feels benefits him. I don't think he wants to put the time and the effort that's needed to go into it. I could see him maybe retweeting the idea

at some point just to show that he's, you know, fight or woke or what have you, but actually putting in the work that's required that people like Leslie Smith are putting into it, people like Cajun Johnson have put into it, Conor McGregor's not going to do that. Do I believe Connor McGregor is done with fighting? Absolutely not, Alex. In fact, there's a better chance I wake up in the morning with Ally Quintes quarantine hair that we saw when he was cornering the Algeman-Stralling UFC 250. It ain't happening. It's just not happening. So let's wrap up with this with this question.

question. Let's set, right now, Dana White is saying that they're targeting Habib versus Justin Gaichy in September. Okay, that's a massive fight. And you know Conner's going to be all out there towards the buildup of that fight. In some way, shape, or form, you know he's going to be there. Let's set the over-under on November 1st. November 1st, 2020. Will Connor McGregor compete or be booked to fight before November 1st, 2020? No, he will not. I think he, like I said, I don't think he's retired, but I didn't think he's done for the rest of the year.

This guy can really afford to take as much time off as he wants. And I think it's a hell of a power move for him to say, guess what? 2020, you got your one, you got your one, uh, Taster McGregor early in the year. Everything else, uh, everything else I want no part of. Okay. I've showed you. I've already proven this year that I'm still a top draw. I've proven how much I've been to this company.

And now guess what? The ball, the ball is back in your court to, to make me happy and to make me happy and to make to make me whole and to make things right and to give me what I want. So November, no, I'm actually glad you said November because I could maybe see December, but otherwise I would say no. I think we've got to wait until 2021 to see Connor McGregor in competition again. And frankly, that won't be for the UFC. That will be when he headlines, WrestleMania 37 in March. So you will see, you will see, against Kobe comington. You will see Connor McGregor fight again soon. everyone within the next 12 months

and it will be at the grandest stage of the mall, the pinnacle of combat sports, WrestleMania 37. It's going to be Connor and Dana versus Levitard and Mazadol. Chills. Chills, Mike. It's like, what's the opposite of goosebumps, Alex?

I don't know what that is. We got to figure it out, but there you go. Did I think we'd be talking about Connor McGregor in this shape or form coming out of UFC 250? No, I did not. Alex, I'm sure you feel the same way, but I thank you for joining me on this adventure and the story and the tall, the tall tales of the notorious Connor McGregor for Alex. I am Mike Hack reacting to the big news of Connor McGregor announcing his retirement yet again here on MAAfighting.com. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.