UFC president Dana White has claimed Conor Mcgregor that relinquishing his belt was a joint decision made, both by the fighter and the organisation, due to a logjam created in the featherweight division.
Speaking to Yahoo Sports, White stated that the situation surrounding the 145lbs weight class left a lot of fighters unhappy and the division entirely stuck, due to Conor’s presence in other weight divisions.
“Look, I let Conor fight [Nate] Diaz and then, I let him fight Diaz again,” White said.
“Then, there was the whole 155-pound thing I let him do. But at the end of the day, him doing that tied up the division for a year. There’s a logjam there, and a lot of guys were [angry].
This was my way to fix the logjam. I wanted Aldo to fight Holloway for the belt, but he needed more time. So I looked at it, and I said, well, it makes sense to make Aldo the champion and then have Holloway and Pettis fight for the interim title, and when Jose’s ready, barring any crazy injuries, the winner can fight him,” he went on to add.
Dana White also responded to questions that suggested John Kavanagh claimed it was UFC’s decision to strip Conor of the Featherweight title, to set up the main event fight at UFC 206. The scheduled bout for the main event that evening in Toronto was cancelled due to Daniel Cormier’s injury, making co-main event Pettis vs. Holloway the feature bout for the night.
“He’s [Kavanagh] misinformed,” White said.
“Yeah, he doesn’t know all that has gone on, I guess. Do you think I just did this? This was Conor’s decision.”
The main event at UFC 206 will feature Anthony Pettis, as he takes on Max Holloway for the Interim Featherweight Championship and a shot for the unification title fight against current champion Jose Aldo.
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