If there’s one thing guaranteed to light a fuse under UFC president Dana White, it’s “the media.” That was the case again Friday, and this time it had to do with Conor McGregor.
Speaking to reporters at the UFC Apex, White clarified remarks he recently made about McGregor’s potential involvement in UFC 249.
“The bullsh*t that I have read this week. I started scrolling through: ‘Dana White rips Conor McGregor.’ What? When did I f*cking rip Conor McGregor?” White said. “The media is so full of sh*t. And the f*cking headlines are such f*cking bullsh*t. You literally can’t believe anything you read.”
White’s anger stems from how his words were interpreted in subsequent media reports after he appeared on ESPN’s “First Take.” When asked on the show about McGregor’s status in the wake of his surprise retirement announcement, White indicated the former UFC two-division champion is unhappy with the fact that he hasn’t been granted a fight against interim champ Justin Gaethje, who earned a shot at champion Khabib Nurmagomedov after beating Tony Ferguson at UFC 249.
“(McGregor) wants to fight Gaethje. Gaethje just won to get the fight with (champion) Khabib,” White said on “First Take.” “He just beat Tony Ferguson. Conor had the opportunity to slide into that spot if Khabib or Tony fell out. He came back and said, ‘I’m not a replacement fighter. I’m not going to do it.’ He would be in that position now if he took the fight. He didn’t, Gaethje did, so Gaethje gets it.”
Multiple media outlets took those remarks as a slight against McGregor. However, White clarified Friday that McGregor’s agreement to step into the UFC 249 headliner was “long before the fight every fell out” between Nurmagomedov and Ferguson. It applied to the pre-coronavirus pandemic version of the event scheduled for April 18 in front of fans in Brooklyn, N.Y. – not May 9, when UFC 249 ultimately took place behind closed doors in Jacksonville, Fla.
“Never did Conor turn down a last-minute fight,” White said. “He told us way before that, that he was out of the fight, and we never even asked him again.”
Therein lies the confusion, which White didn’t specify on “First Take” and led to the stories written that had White fired up.
“All these idiots start writing stories that I ripped him and that I said he wouldn’t take the fight and everything else. It’s all bullsh*t. Absolute f*cking bullsh*t,” White said. “And the only thing that was stupider than the f*cking stories they wrote was the headlines that they put on it. It’s f*cking unbelievable. You literally cannot believe anything you read.”
Dana White sounds off on 'bullsh*t' media stories regarding Conor McGregor and UFC 249