Dana White Says Conor McGregor Isn’t Getting Stripped

After he defeated Nate Diaz by majority decision at UFC 202, featherweight champion Conor McGregor had set his eyes on a trilogy fight against Diaz.

UFC president Dana White pumped the brakes on the idea and said each fighter would be facing different opponents in their next fights. 

White had been insistent on McGregor defending the belt against interim titleholder Jose Aldo or get stripped of the title. During his UFC 202 post-fight press conference McGregor stated he didn’t see the point of having to defend his title against someone he just knocked in 13 seconds at UFC 194 in December.

Recently, White changed his tune and said he would allow McGregor to challenge lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez.

Now, it seems like regardless of the decision McGregor makes, he will not be stripped of his title. 

“He’s not gonna get stripped,” White said to NBC Sports Radio. “He’s gonna make a decision. He knows that the Nate Diaz fight isn’t the fight to make right now. He has to either defend his title or give it up and decide what he wants to do next.”

Early estimates for UFC 202 have it doing between 1.2- 1.5 million pay-per-view buys, which would be among the top three PPV’s in UFC history. White seems to be softening his stance on his biggest star defending the title immediately due to the success of the event.

“Think about this, Pacquiao-Mayweather, the build up for that fight, everything else. That fight didn’t live up to the hype and I think, more importantly, it left a really bad taste in people’s mouths. I don’t think that was the case for Diaz-McGregor [2]. With the amount of people that were pulled in to watch that fight, everybody left satisfied and those are the kind of fights that make you want to come back and watch again.”

White hasn’t given a timeline as to when he will make a decision on what McGregor’s next step will be.