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UFC News: McGregor was planning to fight RDA, and not Khabib. 

UFC on FOX Sports 1: McGregor v Holloway
The Notorious Conor McGregor.

What's the story?

In his latest Instagram post, the 'Notorious' Conor McGregor confirmed that the UFC had plans to make him fight at Rio in the UFC 224 card.

Conor did not explicitly mention who was his opponent for that card, but the plan, as reported by Ariel Helwani was to fight Rafael dos Anjos (RDA) for the interim welterweight title.

In case you didn't know...

The Interim title fight between Conor Mcgregor and Rafael Dos Anjos never came to fruition, mainly because of the UFC 223 melee and the subsequent arrest of Conor.

This is the second time Dos Anjos is missing a big payday opportunity by fighting Conor. Earlier, he was forced to bail on his lightweight title defense against former featherweight champion Conor McGregor in UFC 196 at MGM Grand, Las Vegas, Nevada.

He was replaced by Stockton's Nate Diaz in that event, who pulled off one of the biggest upsets in UFC history by defeating Conor by submission on the ground.

Dos Anjos is scheduled to fight Colby Covington for the welterweight title in UFC 225 at Chicago this weekend.

The heart of the matter

Conor Mcgregor, as a response to Forbes ranking him the fourth richest athlete last year, posted on Instagram indicated that, if the May 12th Rio De Janeiro fight (UFC 224) had taken place, he would have surpassed Ronaldo and Messi as the second richest athlete in the list.

This is the first time an official source had confirmed about this proposed fight and it was popularly assumed that Conor was to fight the undefeated Khabib Nurmagomedov next.

Conor's entry into the Forbes top five is a result of the wealth he made after the big money fight with boxing legend Floyd Mayweather, who tops the list of the richest athletes.

Made it to number 4 on the Forbes list this year. If I had of fought on the agreed May 12th bout in Rio De Janeiro, I would have surpassed Ronaldo and Messi to take 2nd place. Something came up however... Ah well, still under 30.

A post shared by Conor McGregor Official (@thenotoriousmma) on

What's next?

Conor Mcgregor is about to receive the Judicial verdict for his UFC 223 actions this month, and if the conditions are favorable for him, the possibility of him fighting more than once this year to beat his previous year's record is really high.


Would you have liked to see McGregor take on RDA? Let us know in the comments.


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