McGregor's Bluff Has Been Called - No UFC 200, No MSG

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Not a month-and-a-half ago, Conor McGregor was the greatest thing that had ever happened to the UFC, the mega-talent with the silver tongue and the crossover appeal and the marketing acumen and (most importantly) the loyalty that the promotion had always dreamed of. Every card he headlined broke gate records; every fight he fought cleared new bars for inventiveness and improbability; every press conference he took over printed money.

Now, though, Conor McGregor and his rabbis at the UFC, President Dana White and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, have drifted a thousand miles away from each other. One small but earth-shattering tweet from McGregor followed by an accusatory response from White, and the MMA world is in the midst of a Cold War.

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Now we seem to have entered a new punitive phase in the UFC/McGregor dispute, with the fight promotion eager to affirm for the whole world its belief that it is bigger than any single fighter and that no fighter, no matter how big, is in a position to change the world, not for himself or for his fellow fighters. So not only is Conor McGregor off the UFC 200 card, White is now saying that the champion won’t fight in New York when the UFC returns to the state for the first time in 20 years in November. This despite the fact that a Conor McGregor fight at Madison Square Garden would bring in untold millions of dollars and take over the media in the greatest media city in the world. This despite the fact that New York City has been the adopted home of the Irish in America for 150 years, a city with Ireland in its blood and bones, a city that will welcome Conor McGregor with hungry arms. The UFC appears to be punishing Conor McGregor by punishing the people who love him most. That’s what you call a hard bargain, I guess. Negotiating the Las Vegas way.

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