mma / News

Dana White Says There Won’t Be a Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov World Tour

August 5, 2018 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas

Dana White spoke in a post-UFC 227 press conference about plans for Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov and more. Highlights are below, per MMAjunkie:

On there not being a world tour for McGregor vs. Nurmagomedov: “We don’t have time for a world tour. These guys are going to fight the first week of October. Both guys are going to go into camp. I’ll do something fun, and we’ll do some different stuff. We’re literally having a big meeting on Monday to get this stuff in order and get it going.”

On whether he’s concerned about another brawl between McGregor and Nurmagomedov: “I’m pretty confident that we can control what happened. What happened in New York, obviously if you look at when that happened, everybody was loading on to the buses, everything was done, and our staff still handled it pretty damn well for what was going on and how it went down. And obviously now, we’re very aware and very ready. Nothing’s going to happen.”

On Nate Diaz’s rant at the 25th anniversary press conference claiming he’s inactive due to the settled lawsuit settled in May: “You tell me if everything’s alright with Diaz. If you can decipher that code, call me tomorrow and let me know.”

On whether he’s spoken with Diaz: “What would we talk about? His lawsuit? I don’t know what he’s talking about. Was he at the fight tonight? He asked for tickets, and then we called and said, ‘You’re coming, right?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’m coming.’ I guess he didn’t come.”

On the success of the card: “We sold out the Staples Center. Every A-list celebrity and who’s-who in Hollywood was here tonight. There’s always going to be critics. It was an awesome night, a very successful night, and I’m happy. The week of a fight like this, if it’s the heavyweights, or it’s Conor. Any of you that have ever been married before and did the seating chart for your wedding. There’s no bigger (expletive) nightmare in the world than that. That’s what I do every weekend. It’s the worst part of this job, I swear to you. Leading into this weekend, it felt as big as any fight we’ve ever done. The requests I was getting for tickets, who the requests were coming from, the people I had to say no to, even if you have some tickets, there’s some spots you wouldn’t put those people, just like your wedding. I know we haven’t been back to LA in a while, but still, it was big.”

On superfights: “Let’s put this into perspective. B.J. Penn was 155 pounds before we had lighter divisions, and he wanted to fight at heavyweight. He wanted to fight Randy Couture, and then he wanted to box Oscar De La Hoya. Totally different…I love guys that want to fight everybody. I love guys that are willing to jump, and I think the fans love guys like that too. So that’s always good to hear. The reason Conor McGregor is such a huge star is he’s that guy.”

On people claiming T.J. Dillashaw is the best bantamweight fighter: “You can start making the argument right now about Dillashaw. He beat (Renan) Barao twice when Renan hadn’t lost in 10 years. Then he beats Cody Garbrandt when he was coming off an unbelievable fight with Cruz. You can make the argument that Dillashaw is right there, if not the (best bantamweight in the world).”