What do we make of the Conor McGregor retirement fiasco?
Conor McGregor, the MMA’s poster boy and the UFC’s Featherweight Champion, had this to tweet in the wee hours of the morning:
“I have decided to retire young.
Thanks for the cheese.
Catch ya’s later.”
While fighters generally have the tendency to tease retirement, either to create waves on social media or with the ignoble intention of pranking an eager fanbase, this tweet sent out by the game’s favourite son suggested deeper implications than either of those angles.
For one, Conor McGregor certainly doesn’t need to tease retirement to create waves in the media. And for those who have followed the meteoric rise of the “truth talker” who shoots from the hip, he doesn’t seem to be much of a prankster either.
Sure enough, with the MMA media swarming all over the news in no time, reports from the ever reliable Ariel Helwani of MMA fighting corroborated the veracity of the tweet, stating that his well placed sources confirmed it was indeed no troll job.
Apparently there is indeed a blazing fire behind all the smoke.
Although Conor McGregor or his camp have been unavailable for comment since, the death knell was sounded out to the MMA world – still immersed in shock and awe at the sudden onset of deveopments – when the UFC announced that they were pulling Conor McGregor from the UFC 200 card that he was set to headline alongside Nate Diaz.
While Dana White went on Sportscentre to claim that the withdrawal was due to the Irishman refusing to play ball with the company and arrive at Las Vegas to promote the mega event this friday, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand – that even on first glance – the situation beggars greater comprehension than merely what meets the eye.