As Francis Ngannou was walking to the cage for his fight against Philipe Lins, White went live on Instagram with news that McGregor was finally making his return to the octagon for the first time in five years for a rematch against Max Holloway that headlines UFC 329 in July. Rumors about McGregor’s comeback have been swirling for weeks so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that White decided to make the fight official during the MVP event, which was headlined by Ronda Rousey against Gina Carano.
Paul wasn’t surprised how it all went down but he also knows for a fact that White was obviously paying attention to his new competition with the attention the MVP MMA card was receiving head of Saturday night’s event.
“The cokehead is back!” Paul said about McGregor’s return to action. “Nice. Yeah, that’s cool. Drop it during our event. It doesn’t matter. That just shows how pressed they are.
“Little insecure boys trying to piggyback off of our event and try to put some news over top of us. It’s not going to work buddy.”
Viewership numbers for the Rousey vs. Carano card won’t likely be made available for a few days and ultimately it’s up to Netflix to divulge the exact audience that tuned into the event.
That said, Paul and his business partner Nakisa Bidarian both sounded very happy with the early returns from the event.
By all accounts, Most Valuable Promotions — which up to this point had only promoted boxing events — is invested in future MMA cards after the success from Saturday’s show.
Perhaps that even means teaming with McGregor at some point in the future because Bidarian would still love to see the Irish superstar clash with Paul in boxing and MMA.
“On the flipside, I’m super excited Conor is back,” Bidarian said. “He’s one of the most engaging characters in the sport. I think it’s good for the sport. I’ve said this numerous times, the biggest fight outside of Paul-[Mike] Tyson that can happen globally is Paul-McGregor.
“Hopefully Conor is back and hopefully these two run it in boxing and MMA and we shatter records all over again. So welcome back, Conor and thank you Dana for bringing him back during the Francis Ngannou walkout.”
Read the full article here
