Conor McGregor isn’t too fond of Nevada these days.
UFC President Dana White spoke about “The Notorious” one’s disdain towards the Nevada Athletic Commission for fining him in the amount of $150,000, or five percent of his fight purse, for the bottle-throwing incident with Nate Diaz at the UFC 202 pre-fight press conference during his appearance on “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd on Wednesday.
According to the UFC boss, McGregor is claiming he wants nothing to do with Las Vegas anymore, and has made it clear to him that he no longer wants to fight in the state of Nevada.
“Conor McGregor hit me yesterday and said, ‘I don’t ever want to fight in Nevada again. Ever,'” White told Cowherd. “How does that make sense for the state of Nevada? That you’re gonna try to fine this kid and Nate that kind of money, it just makes people not want to come fight in our state. And that’s not a good thing.”
As White continued, he explained that in the case of McGregor, if he is serious, he doesn’t actually need to fight in Las Vegas if he chooses not to, as he is clearly a big enough international and domestic star that he can sell out venues anywhere in the world.
“Guess what?” White said. “Conor McGregor doesn’t need Nevada. He can fight anywhere. He can fight in Iowa, OK? We can put his fight on an island off the coast of anywhere. This makes no sense for the state. It’s terrible.”
White also shared his opinion that the $150,000 amount was a bit hefty considering the offense.
“I’m not thrilled about it when it happened,” White said. “We did the best we could to contain it at the time. But throwing water bottles? C’mon.”
Conor McGregor returns to the Octagon against Eddie Alvarez in a champion vs. champion bout with the UFC Lightweight Championship on the line in the main event of UFC 205: Alvarez vs. McGregor.
UFC 205 takes place on Saturday, November 12th from the world-famous Madison Square Garden arena in New York City. Join us here on 11/12 for live coverage of the pay-per-view.
H/T to MMAFighting.com for transcribing the above Dana White quotes from his appearance on “The Herd.”
