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Conor McGregor shockingly announced via social media early Sunday morning that he was retiring from fighting. The 31-year-old Irish superstar took to Twitter almost immediately following the end of Amanda Nunes’ victory over Felicia Spencer at UFC 250 in Las Vegas to say he’s hanging up his gloves and moving on to other endeavors.
“Hey guys I’ve decided to retire from fighting,” McGregor tweeted. “Thank you all for the amazing memories! What a ride it’s been!”
You can read McGregor’s shocking announcement below.
McGregor’s Sudden Retirement Is Huge Blow to UFC
McGregor’s sudden retirement is a major blow to the UFC as a company and MMA as a whole.
Because McGregor, from Dublin, Ireland, is by far the biggest MMA superstar in the world. He’s sold more pay-per-views than any other fighter in MMA history, and he’s not soon going to be replaced as the UFC’s most-watched fighter.
Besides McGregor seems to be retiring at the peak of his athletic powers. He was the first UFC fighter ever to hold two UFC divisional titles at the same time and was the fighter who actually coined the term “champ champ” after becoming the UFC’s featherweight and lightweight double champion back in 2015.
Additionally, McGregor was able to last to the tenth round in his first (and only) professional boxing match against the best boxer of a generation, Floyd Mayweagther Jr., in August 2017.
And after a 15-month layoff from fighting after suffering a submission loss to UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229, McGregor looked amazing in his return fight when he stopped Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in just 40 seconds at UFC 246 in January.
But UFC president Dana White told reporters after UFC 250 that McGregor should retire if that’s what the Irishman wants to do.
“Nobody is pressuring anybody to fight,” White said per ESPN. “And if Conor McGregor feels he wants to retire, you know my feelings about retirement — you should absolutely do it. And I love Conor … there’s a handful of people that have made this really fun for me. And he’s one of them.”
McGregor Deleted Recent Training Video
The fighter had posted a video of himself training on Instagram as recently as yesterday and appeared to be in some phenomenal shape.
Curiously, McGregor seems to have deleted that video from his account, though you can still see it as captured and reposted by ESPN.
So one has to wonder why McGregor just suddenly and shockingly decided to call it quits this weekend.
White went so far as to suggest McGregor, Jon Jones and Jorge Masvidal might be “gunning at” the UFC boss over how much they think they should be getting paid to fight.
“If that’s what Conor is feeling right now — Jon Jones, Jorge Masvidal, I feel you,” White said per ESPN. “It’s not like I’m going, ‘Holy s—, this is crazy, this is nuts.’ Nothing is crazy and nuts right now, because everything is crazy and nuts right now, on a certain level. I totally understand it and get it.”
McGregor’s Retirement Tweet Leaves More Questions Than Answers
Despite comments from both McGregor and White, there are still so many questions about what just happened to McGregor’s fighting career.
Is McGregor really walking away from the sport or does he have some other motive in mind?
Could McGregor soon be heading into the world of professional wrestling?
Does the Irishman fancy himself as a politician now?
And why would McGregor, who seems to have many other options far beyond just the UFC, “retire from fighting” at all when he could still make a huge amount of money inside a boxing ring against the likes of Manny Pacquiao or Mayweather?
There doesn’t seem to be any real answers to those questions right now.
All that anyone knows at the present is that McGregor tweeted he plans to retire and nobody saw it coming.
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