After defeating Nate Diaz in the early hours of this morning, Conor McGregor is without doubt the man of the moment – but what will be his next move?
Before stepping into the octagon with Nate for UFC 202, McGregor was mauled with requests to either go back down to featherweight to fight Jose Aldo again or to vacate his featherweight champion belt, reports Fox.
At the minute, McGregor isn’t willing to commit to anything but judging from what he’s said he won’t be having a second fight with Aldo any time soon.
Last night, McGregor said:
How long was I going back and forth with Jose? That must have been a two-year build up. He pulled out last minute. I continued to fight someone else. Then we rescheduled, two-year round-the-world deal with that boy and then he stepped in and I beat him in 13 seconds.
It’s hard for me to get excited about that, especially after his last performance. It was a decision, he didn’t go out and get it. He didn’t go out and get it like I wanted him to get it. So I don’t know, we’ll see.
I’m the 145-pound champion. The interim 145-pound champion is a man that I KO’d in 13-seconds. I’ve got to figure out what’s next but right now, I don’t know what’s next. There’s many things in the pipeline so sit tight.
However the UFC chairman, Dana White, doesn’t seem to be too happy with what McGregor is saying – doubling down on the promise that if he does not fight at featherweight, he will have to vacate it or it will be stripped from him.
What Dana does seem rather happy about is the prospect of McGregor fighting against Diaz for the third time – which is one of the big choices for McGregor to make in the very near future.
It would be the deciding fight to see which one of them truly is the better fighter and would no doubt generate a shit-tonne of dollar for the UFC just by ticket sales and PPV fees alone.
Personally I can’t see how McGregor and Diaz couldn’t have the third fight – it seems like a must, a necessity, a fight which needs to happen to prove which one is the more dominant welterweight (or lightweight) fighter.
Another option for the Irishman is to go down to lightweight and fight Eddie Alvarez to become champion of both the featherweight and lightweight divisions thus completing his goal of becoming a simultaneous two-division champ.
However there are still some other options out there for McGregor, and some of them aren’t even in the Octagon.
Speaking to Fox about his next move, McGregor said:
The belt situation is lingering. I’ve upset Lorenzo and Dana the other day. I’m speaking to new people now. I’ve got to talk about what’s next because there’s a lot of options and some might not be this sport.
Personally I can think of two potential stops for McGregor outside of the Octagon: WWE and/or Hollywood.
Now, McGregor has voiced a lot of hate for the current state of the WWE in a series of manic tweets – but could this merely be an attempt to get some sort of a connection going and to make his way into pro-wrestling as a villain desperate to make wrestling better?
I’m not the biggest fan of pro-wrestling, in fact I’m not a fan at all, however I’m pretty sure if the Notorious was to get involved it would make quite the pretty penny for both McGregor and the WWE as a whole.
Back in April, the Notorious dropped out of the new xXx film where he was supposed to play a role alongside Vin Diesel and Samuel L Jackson.
That role was picked up by none other than Middleweight Champion, Michael Bisping.
However, could McGregor change his mind following UFC 202 and take a punt at the film industry yet again?
McGregor added:
I’m in a beautiful, beautiful position right now. And that was built through hard work and I’m going to capitalize on that.
You can’t argue against him there – especially knowing he pocketed $3 million last night…
You’re always guaranteed one thing with McGregor though. Whatever he does, he’ll make sure it’s fucking interesting!
