Early this week, Conor McGregor’s two-weight world title reign was cut short when the UFC decided to strip him of the featherweight title. In turn, then interim champion José Aldo was reinstated as the undisputed 145-pound title-holder.
It was a decision that expectedly did not sit well with McGregor’s team. Head coach John Kavanagh went on to rip on the UFC for such a “short-sighted” and “ridiculous” move.
“They felt they had to make this for a title in order for it to sell so they brought in another interim title that Jose Aldo already has and then bumped Jose Aldo up to the current undisputed champion,” Kavanagh said. “Which just seems ridiculous to me.”
McGregor won the title last December against Aldo, but has not defended it once. That eventually created a stalemate within the 145-pound division. According to UFC president Dana White, stripping McGregor of the belt and handing it to Aldo is his solution to the problem.
“Look, I let Conor fight [Nate] Diaz and then, I let him fight Diaz again. Then, there was the whole 155-pound thing I let him do,” White told Yahoo! Sports. “But at the end of the day, him doing that tied up the division for a year. There’s a logjam there and a lot of guys were [angry].”
“This was my way to fix the logjam,” he continued. “I wanted Aldo to fight Holloway for the belt, but he needed more time. So I looked at it and I said, well, it makes sense to make Aldo the champion and then have Holloway and Pettis fight for the interim title, and when Jose’s ready, barring any crazy injuries, the winner can fight him.”
Holloway and Pettis will face each other as the new headliners for UFC 206 on December 10th in Toronto.