White: Giving up the belt was McGregor’s decision

Former UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor won the title at UFC 194. On December 12, 2015. His next fight was for the lightweight title at UFC 196 on March 5, 2016. Then then-champion Rafael Dos Anjos dropped out with an injury, and Nate Diaz stepped in on such short notice that the fight was made at welterweight. McGregor lost, and then won the rematch. Then McGregor finally got his lightweight title shot vs. new champion Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 November 12.

Afterward, McGregor said he wanted to take off until May when he and partner Dee Devlin expect their first child. Further, McGregor made no mention what so ever of fighting a featherweight, and dismissed #1 lightweight challenger Khabib Nurmagomedov as a “pull-out merchant.” Notorious expressed some interest in fighting welterweight Tyron Woodley, or the winner of the Woodley vs. Wonderboy rematch. The only contest that seemed to excite him was a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather.

When UFC 206 lost its light heavyweight championship fight between Daniel Cormier and challenger Anthony Johnson, the UFC stripped McGregor, made interim champion Jose Aldo the full titlist, and made Max Holloway vs. Anthony Pettis for the interim belt. Whatever the issues there may be with the interim belt, stripping McGregor was reasonable and inevitable.

However, McGregor’s great and loyal coach John Kavanagh, characterized the removal as haphazard and ridiculous, and said the decision was “was more the UFC, than McGregor.

UFC president Dana White spoke recently with Kevin Iole for Yahoo Sports, and said the coach was incorrect.

He’s misinformed, said White. Yeah, he doesn’t know all that has gone on, I guess. Do you think I just did this? This was Conor’s decision.

Look, I let Conor fight Diaz and then I let him fight Diaz again, explained White. 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.