On the latest edition of the ‘UFC Unfiltered’ podcast, Dana White appeared to suggest that Conor McGregor would be taking off more time than anyone had realized.
McGregor revealed after his lightweight title win over Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 in November that he intended to take time out while his long-time girlfriend Dee Devlin gives birth to their first child, which is due in May.
A six month layoff didn’t sound too bad, but White’s latest update suggests that he’s not going to be in any rush to return afterwards.
“That (featherweight) belt hadn’t been defended in almost a year, and Conor’s taking another ten months off for maternity,” White stated, while discussing the reason why ‘The Notorious’ had to vacate the 145lb title. “It’s not fair to the rest of the guys in that division You can’t tie up the entire division, but I did let him fight for it. I let him do it.”
Now it’s the lightweight division that’s being put on ice, with a ten month layoff means that we won’t be seeing the champion back in the Octagon until around September of 2017.
That won’t go down well with the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson, who have put together long winning streaks in the division and are already impatiently waiting for their shot at the title, while any hopes that welterweight champion Tyron Woodley had that he may get a chance to fight McGregor next are probably out the window based on that timescale.
It’s also a blow for the UFC’s new owners WME-IMG as McGregor is the company’s biggest earner by a country mile, having generated well over four million PPV buys in total for his three headlining fights in the past year.
Now they are facing the prospect of one, or perhaps at a push two, events at the very most featuring ‘The Notorious’ in the coming year.
With that in mind, the return of another proven PPV draw, Ronda Rousey, at UFC 207 at the end of this month will come as something of a relief for the promotion, though there’s major question marks right now about how much longer she intends to keep fighting before hanging up her gloves for good.
