By Peter Carroll

The most Irish thing about yesterday’s UFC 200 press conference was the handful of voices reluctantly signing ‘Ole, Ole, Ole’ as Dana White reiterated the bad news he confirmed earlier in the day on Good Morning America. 

Despite the very public standoff he has had with McGregor, whose failure to appear at the commercial shoots for the July 9 card led to a very temporary retirement and ultimately forced his exit from the event, White maintained that he has respect for the Irishman. 

“Listen, Conor’s going to fight again,” Dana White announced as the Irish chorus faded.  

“He’s going to fight at UFC 201, 202, 203…whatever the deal might be. We’ll see what’s next when that plays out. But (UFC) 200 is the fight everybody’s been looking to for a long time. It is what it is. The show’s going to roll on, and Conor will fight again.”

He added: “Conor is fun. Conor is a stud. I have a lot of respect for Conor. Conor and I just had a – you have to show and do the PR. You have to.”

After McGregor’s retirement and White’s pulling of the Irish superstar from the marquee card last Tuesday, the UFC president left the door open for McGregor’s return. Even at the press conference following Jon Jones’ successful return last Saturday, White refused to comment on whether the returning champion had done enough to secure the headline act of the T-Mobile arena date. 

Yet, when McGregor announced that he was back on the card on Monday, White bulldozed his statement. He even highlighted his frustration with answering the same question about the inflammatory Gael’s presence at the event.

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McGregor’s retirement tweet held the world captive. Like an ember dropping into dry tinder, his announcement traveled rapidly until the entire world was ablaze, thrilled by the sport's biggest star sticking it to his employers in a very public manner. 

National news broadcasts, the front pages of hundreds of newspapers, radio debates, and social media polls carried the scandal. The entire civilized world wanted a piece of the action. 

But instead of giving it to the masses and reaping the massive financial benefits, UFC opted for a second meeting between Jones and Cormier. 

The question is, would the promotion have passed on McGregor for UFC 200 if they didn't already have their first event in Madison Square Garden lined up?

Yeah, White claimed that McGregor wouldn’t have anything to do with their maiden voyage to the Big Apple. But there was public standoff going down, and people tend to say crazy stuff in those circumstances. 

ESPN reported that the organization stands to lose $45 million without the outspoken featherweight champion atop the UFC 200 bill. As a business, it makes no sense for UFC to turn their back on that money. 

For that reason, you’d have to think they will reinvest it into the Madison Square Garden show on November 12. It's the smart play.



The day MMA was made legal in New York, UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta promised the MMA universe one of the promotion’s biggest cards for their debut at Madison Square Garden. At the moment, on the back of his fallout with the promotion, McGregor is still the biggest name on the promotion’s books. 

Ireland has rich historical links with New York from The Great Famine in the 18th century, when over a million Irish were forced to immigrate to ‘The New World’. If New Jersey’s Frankie Edgar claim the interim featherweight title from Jose Aldo at UFC 200, a unification bout between Edgar and McGregor in MSG would basically provide UFC with a license to print money. 

To add to that, all the lads who had to beg their significant others to allow them to go to Vegas won’t have that problem if McGregor fights in New York. They will be dragged through every store in Manhattan at the cost of the trek, though. No Irish woman in her right mind will pass up a shopping trip to New York that close to Christmas. 

Not a hope. 

McGregor has pointed to an alleged $400 million he has generated for the promotion in eight months. Between the fights, the world tours, the media obligations and the training, McGregor must be completely exhausted at this point. After such a meteoric rise over the last three years, sitting out UFC 200 is not the worst thing in the world for him. 

If I were his manager, I would tell him to leave the gym, leave his phone at home and just get away for a month. Although he has professed his obsession for the fight game, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and he could definitely benefit from the break. Since returning from injury in July 2014 he has fought six times. As admirable as it is, relatively speaking, it’s too much activity for a champion facing top competition.

His knee was in pretty bad shape when he fought Mendes last July, as he explained in the post-fight press conference for UFC 189. He still fought twice in the eight months that followed that contest. 

Allowing himself some time to get some head space and to rest could see the Irishman completely revitalized by November. Anything other than putting McGregor on that first New York City card would be a travesty.

Peter Carroll is an Irish journalist covering mixed martial arts from his home in Dublin.