It didn’t take long for Conor McGregor to offer up a response to his boss’s mild Friday takedown of him.
UFC president Dana White, ahead of Friday’s UFC on ESPN 6 card in Boston, told the Boston Globe that McGregor “isn’t the man anymore.” Instead, White said lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, who happens to be McGregor’s fiercest rival carries that unofficial title.
“Khabib is the man now … so Khabib gets to sit back and call the shots,” White told the paper.
Saturday, McGregor fired off a response on Twitter taking aim at Nurmagomedov’s title defense in September at UFC 242, which took place in Abu Dhabi.
“Who’s not the man?” McGregor posted on Twitter. “Your man had that marquee event did he? More like an event in a marquee. A tent in the fucking sand it was. Keep spoofing to your self horse. Jock strap sniffer championships.”
McGregor’s social media response comes not long after the New York Times published a report saying the former two-division UFC champion is being investigated in his native Ireland for a second alleged sexual assault.
McGregor has not fought since a little more than a year ago, when Nurmagomedov submitted him in the fourth round at UFC 229. After his win, Nurmagomedov jumped over the cage and went after McGregor teammate Dillon Danis cageside, which set off a melee that wound up with both fighters suspended and fined by the Nevada Athletic Commission.
McGregor won the featherweight title in December 2015, but never defended it. Instead, he went after the lightweight belt and won it in November 2016. He never defended that title, either. He opted for a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in August 2017 that paid him reportedly near $100 million.
The UFC 229 fight with Nurmagomedov is all he’s had since then, and though he announced on Twitter in March that he was retiring – the same day a report of a first sexual assault allegation in Ireland dropped – he has said he wants to come back, and who he’d like to fight.
But despite hints from White that things could be in the works for a McGregor return, nothing has come close to fruition. Earlier this week, White said a potential fight between McGregor and former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar wouldn’t happen, despite both fighters apparently wanting it.
Just about all the news McGregor has made since his loss to Nurmagomedov has been of the negative variety, and not fight-related. He has the two reported alleged sexual assault investigations in Ireland. He punched a man at a bar in Ireland and was caught on camera. He was caught on camera taking a man’s phone outside a hotel in Miami Beach, smashing it, then walking away with it. And the bad-boy image truly kicked off when he threw a hand truck through the window of a bus carrying UFC 223 fighters in Brooklyn, including Nurmagomedov, which truly ignited their rivalry.
Conor McGregor lashes out at Dana White's comment that he's no longer 'the man'
