If Conor McGregor winds up waiting out to face the winner of Khabib Nurmagomedov versus Tony Ferguson, some have questioned whether that could put his plans for a three fight, 2020 at jeopardy. But, in a recent interview his manager Audie Attar gave, the latter referenced McGregor’s plans to fight two more times this year.
Attar references a three-fight card year for McGregor
Before McGregor returned to the Octagon last month at UFC 246, he repeatedly talked about fighting three times in 2020. Then, after he quickly put away Donald Cerrone in the card’s headliner, McGregor repeated his desire to fight again soon. In fact, the former lightweight and featherweight champ said he doesn’t want to sit on the sidelines to face the winner of Nurmagomedov vs. Ferguson, which will go down on April 18th. A key reason being that by the time the lightweight title is up for grabs again, it will likely be in late summer.
Well, despite all this, Dana White has continued to say that the plan is to have McGregor fight for the 155 title next. But, during a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Attar was still talking about a three-fight year for McGregor:
“You’re always busy with Conor. Conor is a global superstar,” Attar said. “Now we’ve launched a whiskey company, we have an apparel company, we have a fitness venture launching, we have all these different businesses going on. It’s always busy but I think when you throw in three fight cards for him as well for him to be on and headline, it takes things to a different level.
“Yes it’s going to be busy but we welcome that. We’re super excited for it. I think we’re all on the same page when it comes to ambition and goals and so that’s really fun to see when you’re entire team is in sync. I think we all welcome that type of work load. We don’t look at it as pressure. We look at it as opportunity.”
But couldn’t McGregor’s third fight go down in late, 2020?
Now, yes, one could look at Attar’s comments and ask why McGregor couldn’t in theory, fight for the lightweight title in late summer, and then once more before the year is up. In theory, ya. That’s possible.
But, when you consider McGregor’s comments about staying active, it’s hard to imagine that he’s willing to wait say, seven, more months for his next bout. Further, what if Khabib or Tony get injured in their April 18th bout? And what if Khabib wins and refuses to grant McGregor a rematch?
The champ has repeatedly said that Conor doesn’t deserve a rematch, on account of defeating Cerrrone. So, if any of this happens, that could quickly punt McGregor’s plans for a three fight year out the window. Further, recently McGregor’s head coach John Kavanagh relayed he’s be “very surprised” if Conor didn’t fight again before summer.
So, it will be interesting to see what happens here. Will Conor go with the UFC’s plan?
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