Conor McGregor was down, but not out after his shock loss to Nate Diaz last night at UFC 196, and could still compete at UFC 200 where it seems that defending his featherweight title is a distinct possibility.
At the UFC 196 post-fight press conference McGregor admitted that he was “heartbroken” after the first loss of his UFC career, but despite his gamble to take the Diaz fight on short notice not paying off, he vowed to bounce back from the defeat.
“This is the game,” McGregor told the assembled media in Las Vegas. “I am happy to have come out and continue and stay in this fight,” It didn’t pay off. This is the fight business. It’s another day. I will come back.”
The fact that McGregor has become the king of trash-talking during his unbeaten UFC run always meant that when he did eventually lose his words were going to come back to haunt him, but the Irishman has no plans to retreat into the shadows.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow,” McGregor admitted. “We can run from adversity or we can face our adversity head on.”
It would appear that McGregor plans to take the latter option and it seems that he’s already formulating a plan to return to the featherweight division where he still remains champion despite last night’s defeat.
“I know there’s a lot of people celebrating this, celebrating another man’s victory,” McGregor stated, persumably referring to Jose Aldo in particular who taunted him on social media after the fight. “I cannot understand that. At the end of the day I’m featherweight champion and I feel that it is right to go back down there and to remind them.”
McGregor specifically mentioned both Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar as possible opponents, and whoever it ends up being, it still seems as if ‘The Notorious’ has every intention of competing at UFC 200 in July.
““I still feel UFC 200 is there for me,” McGregor stated. “But I will sit [and think]. I’m not cut, I’m simply heartbroken.”
