'I Was Like 'F*** You Too Then' – Conor McGregor On His Fallout With UFC
Conor McGregor has told ESPN that he wants to step in the ring to fight Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match.
In his first interview since being axed from the UFC 200 line-up after a fallout with management that centered on his refusal to attend a promotional tour in advance of the event, McGregor opened up about the possibility of a match with Mayweather.
McGregor seemed interested in the idea of facing the undefeated and recently retired boxer but he claimed he would not step in the squared circle for anything less than $100,000,000.
“He gets $100 million, and I get $7 million? That is a pay cut to me. I don't take pay cuts. I thought boxing was where the money was at.” McGregor told Kenny Mayne on ESPN.
“If he is talking 100 million, I am also talking 100 million”.
“I am 27-years-old and I’m just about half way through a 100 million dollar contract. At 27, Floyd was on Oscar De La Hoya’s undercard”.
“He needs me, I don’t need him. That’s the truth. He fights somebody else in the boxing realm and all of a sudden the pay goes from $100 million to $15 million. If he wants to talk, we can talk, but it’s me who is in control”.
McGregor also opened up about the bitter dispute that led to his removal from the main event at UFC 200.
“I just wanted to do reasonable media and nd then all of a sudden it's “Hey, Conor, we've got to drag you, 40-hour flights to come and do a run-around New York, Vegas, California, 70 press conferences, 70 talk shows, adverts, all of this and I was like, I only made you $400 million last week.
"That was only last week that fight. And now you want me to go, you know when I need to get right.”
McGregor addressed the tweet that sent fight fans worldwide into a frenzy, when he announced his retirement from mixed martial arts.
The Dubliner admits he wasn’t planning to retire and didn’t expect his tweet to create the media frenzy that followed:
“It was kind of half-hearted, and then it just went and then all of a sudden, you're off UFC 200, and I was like “well, f**k you too then.”
“It was kind of fun I mean, seeing it all blow up like that, it was amusing for a while.”
"There were times when I was seeing the press conferences take place, and I was like: “I should have just jumped on the damn flight. I should have just stuck it out and went with it."
"Sometimes you've got to do what's right for you and not do what's right for everybody else. And especially if you've done what's right for everybody else a million times over."
"You should have the right to do what's right for you sometimes. So that's what I felt."