Forget whether or not Conor McGregor will return to featherweight. Now it sounds like he may not fight at lightweight again. You’d assume that Conor would stick around at 155 to complete his quest of taking the belt off current champion Rafael dos Anjos, but it sounds like Conor is revoking Rafael’s opportunity to face him.
When asked at the UFC 196 open workouts if he’d face welterweight champion Robbie Lawler next, McGregor replied “That’s probably the leading option.”
“I mean dos Anjos is an absolute bum,” he continued. “How do you pull out of a fight with a bruised foot and he’s still talking all this sh*t and his team is talking all this sh*t? Man up and fight. C’mon. I don’t know what to say to this guy.”
He’s referring to comments from Rafael’s manager saying “Conor was relieved when he found out Rafael dos Anjos was injured,” which is an interesting thing to say about someone who moved up a weight class specifically to fight dos Anjos.
Fighting McGregor would have been dos Anjos’ first big money pay-per-view – his draw at the moment is so minimal the UFC has been putting his fights on free TV. But now it sounds like his team has annoyed McGregor so much, he’ll just skip fighting dos Anjos and move onto 170 pound champion Lawler, possibly at UFC 200. Red panty night revoked.
“I like Robbie, I won’t say a bad word about Robbie,” McGregor said. “He fights with his heart, he’s been around the game so, so long. But if we fought, I’d beat him. I’m too fast for him. The size difference is not anything. I’ve stood beside him, I’ve seen him.”
“We’ll see how it goes; that is an appealing one. The welterweight [belt]. All the belts. We’ll see.”