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McGregor Pulled From UFC 200...Tweets That He's Retired!

MR. BMJ

AnaSCI VIP / Donating Member
Sep 24, 2006
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Very disappointed too....and I like the guy....but slowly losing confidence:(
 

MR. BMJ

AnaSCI VIP / Donating Member
Sep 24, 2006
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Chael Sonnen wrote his thoughts on this:


"I don't have any inside info on this. Just being around the business since the 90's, I know how it works. I know how this whole thing went down. And if I tell you what I think, I guarantee I'm 98 percent right if not 100.

"Conor had a deal with the UFC. And Conor's now going back and trying to renegotiate and it just doesn't work that way. It can't. You can't write everything down, you can't get your contracts done all the time in this business. There's 500 guys under contract. There's not even that many employees in the UFC. I think there's like 340 employees with 500 fighters. There's 53 shows scheduled for a year that only has 52 weeks in the year. You have to be able to make a phone call, count on whatever the guy says, hang up the phone and that's the end of it. You have to be able to do that.

"Conor has a contract, he made a deal, somewhere he didn't sign it. Let the promotion go out, let the money get spent and then realized ‘I've got the upper hand. Now I can come back and renegotiate. Who's going to tell me no when the advertising is already done?' That's what he did. Guaranteed. With no inside knowledge, guaranteed that's what happened."

While Sonnen has no direct knowledge of the situation, he was one of the UFC's biggest stars for several years and has an intimate knowledge of how negotiations between fighters and management take place. If what Sonnen theorizes is true, it would serve as proof that the long swirling rumors of a growing rift between McGregor and Zuffa were right all along.

During the live chat, Sonnen made several attempts to get in contact with McGregor but was unable to reach him. As Sonnen tried to reach out he continued answering questions on the topic including on the effects of McGregor's decision.

"He might really be done...I don't know if he wants to be done. This was a negotiation tool. But he called the bluff of the wrong guys. These are gamblers man, there's rules in Vegas. If you say bet you have a bet. I mean that. You go to a casino, you don't put your money down, you tell the pit boss ‘I want that bet' if he yells the word bet you have a bet. And it goes both ways. If you win it he'll pay you...Anytime you go into a negotiation and you call someone's bluff, man you better mean it because this is what can happen."

If McGregor really is done, he would be the eighth UFC champion to vacate a belt for non-injury reasons behind Couture, Rutten, Shamrock, Bustamante, Penn, St. Pierre, and Pulver. He would be the only one of those to vacate a belt while coming off a loss. If things are as Sonnen believes them to be, the coming off a loss part could severely hurt McGregor in the court of public opinion.

"When you get beat up by a guy, and then you agree to fight him again, and then you pull out, it really doesn't matter after that. And the miscalculation here by Conor is he's not gonna be telling his side. He's gonna be telling his side to whoever.com. He's not gonna be telling it on FS1 or ESPN or anywhere else. Those days are gone. This was a big mistake."

Regardless of whether this is just a stand off between fighter and management or has its genesis in something else entirely, UFC 200 is now without a headliner. As a perceived flagpole event for the promotion, Zuffa has now been left to scramble for a suitable replacement, a matter which Sonnen also addressed.

"Who's a good replacement for Conor? I guarantee you Georges St.-Pierre's phone is blowing up right now and he's getting a big offer. That's the guy they're gonna go after."

St Pierre has been in the news lately for his renewed negotiations with Zuffa and possible return; however, St. Pierre appears to have some major sticking points about coming back, specifically regarding the Reebok deal, which may not be so easily assuaged. If St. Pierre can't be enticed, Sonnen speculated that a Ronda Rousey-Holly Holm rematch or possibly Jon Jones-Daniel Cormier would be the next plan for the UFC. One thing he was clear on though was that McGregor was absolutely no longer an option.

"This is the biggest UFC of all time and sometimes that's a fun thing to say for promotional reasons, but it is. When you talk about the ratings, when you talk about the biggest show of all time nobody ever even brings up UFC 100 because it was such an anomaly and the numbers were so crazy that you just throw it out. It's like a curve in school. So UFC 200 you would have to imagine would be that big. He was sitting on top of the bill and this is done. The commercials are out. There's a lot of money that's already spent. There's a lot of billboards that are already up....I've known Dana since 2005. He's not putting a patch in this boat. Conor could call him right now, he's not patching up UFC 200."