UFC President Dana White Says He 'Did Not Prevent' Conor McGregor From Being Part Of UFC 200
UFC president Dana White seemingly had the last say on the entire brouhaha that transpired between the company and its top draw, UFC featherweight world champion Conor McGregor.
"The Notorious" was pulled off from his scheduled main event fight against former lightweight title contender Nate Diaz, for not complying with the company's requirements for PR obligations.
For his part, however, McGregor says he merely wanted a "little leeway", and even negotiated to be part of the New York press conference held on Wednesday, then go back to Iceland to isolate himself from the media and focus on training. This request, however, was denied by the UFC.
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In the said press conference, the UFC officially killed off the possibility of McGregor headlining the card, when they announced that the new main event of the July 9th event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas would be a light heavyweight title rematch between reigning champion Daniel Cormier and interim champion Jon Jones.
While some agree with the UFC's decision, many have sided with McGregor, and believed that the UFC is partly to blame in his absence in the card. But according to White, it was the Irishman himself who kept caused his own removal from the fight.
"If you look at the press conference, Joanna Jedrzejczyk who flew in to the press conference from Poland, Claudia came in from Brazil, [Aldo] flew in from Brazil," White explained. People came in from all over the world, Frankie's just getting home and hasn't seen his family."
"This is what we do. This is how it works," he continued. "I didn't prevent him from fighting in UFC 200. He knew what the deal was, I told him what the deal was, and he opted to do that."
UFC 200 is the company's blockbuster event for 2016. Apart from the main event, there would be two other title fights: an interim featherweight championship between José Aldo and Frankie Edgar, and a women's bantamweight title fight between champion Miesha Tate and Amanda Nunes.
