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As Conor McGregor prepares to do battle with Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 this coming Saturday, October 6th, he conducted a lengthy new interview in which he covered a plethora of topics, including why he took so long to return to the UFC.
Naturally, The Notorious One was not short on words as he explained why he was missing from the Octagon for so long, “I don’t owe nobody an answer for nothing.”
“I’m here for the love of this game, love for competition. I fell out of love with the game for a bit,” stated McGregor. “I went off and did my own thing, had many things going on, now I’m back. I’m hungry to compete and we’re here, right on the cusp of it, making weight and handling media obligations, and that’s it.
“The fans have just missed me compete, like I have missed me compete also. We all get what we want on October 6th, McGregor back inside the famous UFC Octagon.”
Another hot topic was the UFC stripping him off his two world titles being another reason he stepped away, reports MMAFighting.com.
“I spent my entire life’s work to win those two UFC world titles. I set out a goal, I put absolutely everything [into it], I sacrificed so much to gain those world titles. And then, as soon as I won the second world title, I hadn’t been offered a featherweight contest, and the featherweight title was taken off me and was handed back to a man I had crazy history with [Jose Aldo],” he remembered.
“I traveled the world with him, it was a two-year build up and he ended up pulling out at the last minute. When I ended up fighting him, I knocked him out in 13 seconds and then they gave him the belt back as soon as I walked outside the Octagon in Madison Square Garden. And then what? About a month or two [later], the lightweight belt is stripped from me also.
“These things irritated me, seeing what way it goes, who the belts are given to, see who the people are who are challenging for the belts and who the person who has the belt is facing to get the belt. Many things irritated me in the game and watching it all unfold, I just became a lot more hungry to come back and show who the real king is.”
McGregor also discussed how he almost came back twice prior to this upcoming fight with Khabib, once against Frankie Edgar when Max Holloway pulled out of UFC 222 and again later when there was talk of a fight with Rafael dos Anjos for an interim welterweight title.
The first episode of UFC 229 Embedded also just dropped and shows McGregor sparring at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas, as well as scenes from the training camps of Nurmagomedov, Tony Ferguson and Anthony Pettis.
Oh yeah, McGregor also just got himself a brand-spanking new 2018 Rolls Royce Phantom VIII Extended Wheelbase – “the creme de la creme of chauffeur driven vehicles” as he put it on Instagram.
What a life this guy leads.