ESPN scored a silence-breaking interview with UFC superstar Conor McGregor on their Sunday Conversation show.
Topics addressed include a potential boxing bout with Floyd Mayweather. McGregor claims that he was offered $7 million for the bout vs. a $100 million payday for Mayweather.
“He needs me. I don’t need him. I’m not taking a pay cut.”
He also discussed the spat with Zuffa brass that led to him being pulled off the UFC 200 card (transcribed by MMA Fighting).
“I was in a time where I was like, figuring out something,” McGregor said. “I didn’t just shut out and say no to everything. I just wanted to do reasonable media, and then, hey, all of a sudden, ‘Conor, it’s three months from the fight, we’ve got to drag you (onto) 40-hour flights to come and do a runaround, New York, Vegas, California, 70 press conferences, 70 talk shows, adverts, all of this,’ and it’s like, I already made you $400 million last week. That was only last week, that fight. I need to get right.
“That’s how it all came about. I just wanted to focus and I was deep in the process, and especially at that particular moment, I just wanted a little bit more time. I didn’t shut it off completely. Reasonable media, is what I said. I said I would do New York. I said I would do everything else after that. I just needed another little bit to set myself, and then the lack of communication, they weren’t having it. They were trying to push back on me, I was trying to push back on them, and look, it blew up then.”
But after a meeting with Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta last week, McGregor is optimistic that “things are in a good place” and he expects to rematch Nate Diaz at UFC 202.
“Good conversation like it always is. We have a good relationship. It is what it is. It happens. This is the fight game. Sometimes emotions get into it. But it’s important to recognize that emotions have no place in business. That’s essentially what it was last night. We just set it aside. There’s no place for emotions in this. We are doing beautiful things. So let’s continue. Let’s fix it and let’s continue.”
The UFC’s recent failed talks with Nate Diaz might complicate those plans, but McGregor either isn’t aware of how those talks went or isn’t concerned.