Dana White: Conor McGregor Will Never Be Given UFC Shares

While the MMA world still gets its head around Conor McGregor’s retirement tweet and whether or not he has genuinely retired, UFC President Dana White, has clarified that McGregor will never be given UFC ownership. And why the Irish man offered the co-main event slot at UFC 239.

Speaking to TMZ Sports (as transcribed by MMA Mania), Dana said that Conor had tweeted him a couple of weeks ago, asking for shares in the UFC, and that he replied that ‘that’s never going to happen’.

”He wrote ‘I feel like I should own a piece of the company. And I said ‘Conor, you know that’s never going to happen.’ But this was a couple of weeks ago.

“But Conor has never come out, sat down with me and said ‘I want a piece of the company and here’s why.’ We’ve never had that conversation. We did it in text two weeks ago. Like I’ve said, I’ve never had a bad conversation with Conor McGregor in the entire time he’s been with this company. You know I love the guy. He’s got plenty of money. If he wants to retire that’s his decision, and I always say when you start talking about retirement, it’s probably something you should do if that’s what you’re thinking.

”Listen, if you want to own a piece of the company, you have to put up the money to buy a piece of the company. That’s how it works. These are all parts of negotiations. If you wanted to buy into the UFC right now, the valuation is pretty huge.”

Whilst on the Barstool Sports “My Mom’s Basement” podcast earlier this week, Dana also explained why McGregor was offered the co-main event at UFC 239 and not the main event.

“Every time I deal with Conor, there’s always something. There’s always something to deal with and we get it figured out.

“Let me ask you a question , we were going to do, the fight that was going to be on the card with him was probably going to be the heavyweight championship. Should that be the co-main event?

“The more people I hear from, the fans and the media and all this s***, if I end up putting Conor McGregor not as a champion on the main event, I guess I don’t have to listen to any bulls*** do I?

“So if I didn’t do it this way and just made him the main event with no title, no nothing, everybody would go f***ing mental and go nuts and start chirping about ‘oh he gets favouritism’. One hundred percent.”

The heavyweight fight Dana was referring to is the Daniel Cormier vs Brock Lesnar fight.

You can read more about McGregor’s retirement tweet and Dana’s instant response here and here.

What are your thoughts on the whole Conor McGregor retirement story?



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