UFC President Dana White has said in an interview with Yahoo Sports reporter Kevin Iole that if McGregor doesn’t book a fight by March, he will be stripped of his lightweight title.
If the deadline passes, then Russian Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson will fight for the belt.
McGregor hasn’t fought in the UFC since he won the lightweight belt against Eddie Alvarez in November 2016 at UFC 205.
White told Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports: “I love that matchup [against Nurmagomedov], but Tony Ferguson is the interim champion, and Conor and I haven’t really figured out when he’s coming back and what’s going on.”
“So Conor has some big decisions to make here, really quick. If he waits — I don’t think Conor wants to fight until August, but if he waits until August or September, that’s around two years since the belt has been defended, and that can’t happen.”
White said that Conor has done really well, made a lot of money and the decision to fight again or not was up to him but that the lightweight belt “has to move on.”
“That’s his choice and his decision. But the belt has to move on, so we’ve gotta figure some stuff out about him in the next couple of months.”
As long as Conor is willing to [book a] fight by March, we could do Khabib versus Tony and then the winner fights Conor for the title.
“Or if Conor doesn’t want to fight and wants to sit out until next fall, then we would have to make Khabib versus Tony for the title, not the interim title.”
You can watch the full interview below or if it’s not showing up in the article, you can watch it here.
The McGregor talk begins around the 7 minute mark.
Main Image via Conor McGregor’s Instagram
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