Jake Paul is shining a lightweight on what he thinks has saved Conor McGregor out of the cage for thus lengthy regardless of the UFC celebrity being wholesome and able to go since mid-2023.
We’re nonetheless ready for UFC to announce a brand new date for Conor McGregor’s return combat. Presently, it’s been penciled in for UFC 310 on December seventh. However the promotion continues to be extraordinarily shifty about locking McGregor in. UFC CEO Dana White repeatedly shoots down Mac return dates and even suggests Conor might by no means combat once more.
So what’s happening? Why would the UFC proceed to delay the return of their largest celebrity? In a brand new episode of Jake Paul’s BS podcast with particular visitor Francis Ngannou, “The Drawback Baby” shared his idea on the state of affairs.
“For the individuals at dwelling who don’t perceive it, they’re like, ‘Why is Conor not combating?’” Paul stated. “So Conor has two fights left on his combat deal, however the UFC is making an attempt to resume their [broadcast] rights deal as a result of they license their content material, that are the fights, to platforms. So that they’re making an attempt to resume their deal — they’re negotiating to let a number of individuals, however let’s say they’re gonna go together with ESPN. They’re making an attempt to resume the deal and get probably the most sum of money.”
“Part of that negotiation is, ‘Hey, we’ve got Conor McGregor for 2 extra fights.’ However should you have been to combat now, that wouldn’t be part of the negotiation. The corporate could be like, ‘Oh, effectively, you solely have Conor for one combat.’ In order that’s why Conor isn’t combating proper now.”
The UFC is about to start out negotiating new broadcast offers firstly of 2025 in anticipation of their ESPN deal ending later within the yr. These offers shall be price billions with or with out McGregor, however we don’t doubt he may sway the worth of a bundle by a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars}.
However this may very well be a a lot easier story we’ve seen many instances earlier than. Typically, the UFC likes re-signing fighters earlier than their contracts expire. And should you’re a giant star like Francis Ngannou that has turned down a brand new contract, they’ll slow-play the remaining fights in your contract as a lot as potential.
“I really feel like they have been making use of this monetary stress on me [by not booking me] as a result of they know that I must combat to become profitable to reside,” Ngannou advised Paul. “After which by not getting these fights, giving me excuses on a regular basis, I’ll in all probability crawl again and say, ‘Okay, I take the contract and I take the cash,’ or one thing like that.”
“I fought as soon as for 20 seconds within the final 16 months,” Ngannou wrote on X (previously Twitter) again in October 2020. Issues wouldn’t get significantly better. He’d combat simply as soon as in 2021, and as soon as in 2022.
Are there related cut-throat enterprise practices at play with Conor McGregor? “The Infamous” has undoubtedly vented his frustration at return delays a number of instances, and the promotion undoubtedly may have gotten him again within the cage earlier in the event that they actually wished to. Again through the pandemic lockdowns they admitted to shelving him as a result of they’d lose an excessive amount of cash and not using a gate. So monetary considerations have already resulted in us getting much less Mac fights.
We’ll have to attend and see if his anticipated December return reserving materializes. If it doesn’t, it definitely provides to the proof that some behind-the-scenes enterprise chicanery is at play.
