Conor McGregor News: UFC Fighter Explains Retirement On Facebook After Twitter Posting

Less than two days after Conor McGregor was pulled from UFC 200 and seemingly announced his retirement on Twitter, the biggest name in mixed marital arts says he’s ready to fight. The UFC featherweight champion explained the reasoning for his tweet in a lengthy Facebook post on Thursday morning, claiming he still wants to face Nate Diaz on July 9.

McGregor addressed UFC president Dana White’s comments that he was taken off the card because he refused to fly to Las Vegas to promote the pay-per-view.

“I'm coming for my revenge here,” McGregor said in the Facebook post, in which he used colorful language to explain his actions. “I flew an entire team to Portugal and to Iceland to make my adjustments in preparation and fix my errors I made with the weight and the cardio prep. With the right adjustments and the right focus, I will finish what I started in that last fight. I will not do this if I am back on the road handing out flyers again.I will always play the game and play it better than anybody, but just for this one, where I am coming off a loss, I asked for some leeway where I can just train and focus. I did not shut down all media requests. I simply wanted a slight adjustment. But it was denied.”

McGregor was defeated by Diaz at UFC 196 on March 5. Diaz was a late replacement for the injured Rafael dos Anjos, and he was named McGregor’s opponent just 11 days before the fight. He handed McGregor his first ever loss in UFC, forcing him to submit in the second round.

McGregor vs. Diaz II was scheduled to headline the biggest PPV in UFC history. White said on Tuesday that UFC had been looking for a new opponent for Diaz, but McGregor has made it clear that he’s not done fighting and wants his rematch at UFC 200.

“I am still ready to go for UFC 200. I will offer, like I already did, to fly to New York for the big press conference that was scheduled, and then I will go back into training. With no distractions.If this is not enough or they feel I have not deserved to sit this promotion run out this one time, well then I don't know what to say. For the record also - For USADA and for the UFC and my contract stipulations - I AM NOT RETIRED.”

One hour after posting his Facebook comment, there were over 14,000 shares and over 330,000 likes. McGregor has 3.41 million Facebook followers and 1.59 million followers on Twitter.