He will have to make a decision though…
In the aftermath of UFC 202, where Conor McGregor won an absolute war against Nate Diaz, Dana White announced that The Notorious must either defend his featherweight belt or he’d be stripped of his title.
But now the UFC President seems to have had a minor change of heart, or at least is wording his statement away from absolutes which leave the UFC top brass with very little wiggle room.
Following the McGregor/Diaz clash, White spoke to numerous outlets where he said the Dubliner’s next fight would have to be against Jose Aldo at featherweight, or else they’d take the belt from him. White later said that he could also fight Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title.
Now it seems like they might not take his belt, regardless of what decision McGregor makes.
Speaking on NBC Sports Radio White said: “He’s not gonna get stripped, he’s gonna make a decision. He knows that the Nate Diaz fight isn’t the fight to make right now. He has to either defend his title or give it up and decide what he wants to do next.
“Think about this, Pacquiao/Mayweather, the build up for that fight, everything else. That fight didn’t live up to the hype and I think, more importantly, it left a really bad taste in people’s mouths. I don’t think that was the case for Diaz-McGregor. With the amount of people that were pulled in to watch that fight, everybody left satisfied and those are the kind of fights that make you want to come back and watch again.”
This is a change of tune for Dana White who had initially seemed so certain that McGregor would either fight Aldo or forfeit the belt, but now he seems less assertive on the subject. It’s not the first time the UFC President has done a u-turn on a decision.
We also can’t imagine The Notorious giving up his belt willingly…
Elsewhere it seems that Nate Diaz is still upset about the result of the fight at UFC 202, judging by one of his latest Instagram posts.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJtgS1EBv1G/?taken-by=natediaz209&hl=en
