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Conor McGregor now has an MMA legend supporting him.
Two-time UFC tournament winner Don Frye has made it known that he's backing McGregor in the featherweight champion's recent dispute with the UFC. In an interview with Submission Radio, Frye talked about McGregor's dust up with Dana White and why he thinks the Irish superstar is in the right.
"I think he's right. He's spot on. That takes too much god damn time away from, you're hired to be a fighter not to be an interview, interviewee. You've got things to do. When you're training for a fight it's a 24/7 job and if they've got you doing more interviews and promoting than they do fighting then you're not gonna last long, you're not gonna have a long career...It all depends on the time spent in the gym. That's what Conor's trying to tell them...[Diaz] is a really good fighter and then he comes in with phenomenal conditioning. Crimey how do you combat that when you're flying around doing a bunch of interviews, more interviews than you do training. You're just setting yourself up for an ass kicking."
McGregor was set to main event UFC 200 in a rematch with Nate Diaz until his refusal to perform certain media obligations the UFC expected of him resulted in Dana White pulling McGregor from the card and postponing his fight with Diaz, possibly indefinitely. Many have speculated that the underlying cause of this drama runs much deeper than media obligations and is primarily about money, however Frye thinks there is another reason: clashing egos.
"How do I say this without being rude? I guess I can't, so piss on it. Dana likes everything his way and if he doesn't get his way he throws a fit and that's what's happening. Conor's spot on. You can't spend more time doing interviews than training. This is a dangerous sport okay. The thing is, it went from a fight, to a sport, to a TV show and it's still a dangerous thing so you got to prepare yourself for it because shit, just training, if you're in one of those fights and you're not hurt, you don't get hurt, it still takes two weeks to recover because of all the hard training. But if you're not training, you're gonna get hurt."
Don Frye has had harsh words for Dana White on more than one occasion previously so his critiques should be taken with the requisite measure of salt; however, White's almost over insistence that he's "not mad at Conor" is seen by many as proof that White is in fact letting his emotions play a role in the decision to remove McGregor from UFC 200. Perhaps because of this White has attempted to portray the UFC as willing to accommodate and work with McGregor to provide him with anything he would need to ensure his presence at media obligations - aside from skipping those obligations altogether. Frye seems to think this isn't doing enough and would rather cater to the whims of his biggest star than lose out on the payday McGregor would bring in.
"Oh hell I would fly Conor in and take him out, wine him and dine him, and tell him ‘okay, now what do I gotta do to get you on the fight card and how many promos can I get from you? We've got to push the show so I'm gonna need some interviews, so how many are you willing to do?"
Dana White has not so much drawn a line in the sand as he has carved it in stone here, meaning that such a plan is almost certainly off the table and so is the Diaz-McGregor rematch. Instead, White announced yesterday that UFC 200 would be headlined by a rematch between Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones for the UFC light heavyweight championship. On the subject of Jones, Frye called his fight against Ovince Saint Preux at UFC 197 "a sleeper" and said that it was "insulting" that Jones, for all his talent, didn't finish Saint Preux in the first round. He then went on to comment on Jones's rematch with Cormier and how he sees that fight playing out.
"Oh my God. It'll be the same thing. It'll be the same thing. Cormier is the most overrated, under-performing, worthless trash talker I've ever heard...He's acting like a badass, like he earned that belt. He didn't earn that belt. Criminy. As far as I'm concerned that belt still belongs to Jon Jones."
You can listen to the full interview below.
5 MUST-READ STORIES
Here we go again. Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones will headline UFC 200.
209. Dana White hopes to find a new opponent for Nate Diaz to fight at UFC 200.
MSG. Miesha Tate wants to rematch Ronda Rousey for the UFC women's bantamweight title at Madison Square Garden.
Wow. Jon Jones revealed his mother had her leg amputated during UFC 197 fight week due to complications from diabetes.
I hate arms: The Ronda Rousey story. Ronda Rousey signed a three-movie deal with Lifetime network.
EXTRA CREDIT READING
Mighty Mouse. Andreas Hale of Sherdog.com talks about Demetrious Johnson, moving up in weight, and the pound-for-pound discussion.
MEDIA STEW
Joanna Champion is f***ing terrifying. Just cold-damn-blooded. "Slowly, day by day" is some grade A murderer talk.
I'm not a huge Cowherd guy but he's got a point here.
I gotta say, I feel like Chael has been pretty spot about the Conor situation from jump street.
The first half of this could legitimately have been audio pulled from any one of the UFC video games.
The UFC took over GMA yesterday morning. Lots of things happened. Here is some of it.
Cain Velasquez is a world beater of a fighter and seems to be an incredibly nice guy person but him doing media is just fruitless.
LONG WATCHES
Best podcast in the game for my money.
TWEETS
Conor not fighting Nate means we don't get 10 weeks of Nate laughing at Conor about beating his ass while Conor spins his wheels trying to find some way to use mind games on a Diaz brother.
He was never in it .. https://t.co/9aRHbx3UfR
— Nathan Diaz (@NateDiaz209) April 27, 2016
Nice to see the Big Pygmy getting love from other fighters.
Respect brother pic.twitter.com/SUenP5XkPU
— Soa The Hulk Palelei (@soathehulk) April 27, 2016
Inspiring.
Power is have Sthenth over time
— Vitor Belfort (@vitorbelfort) April 27, 2016
Oprah Winfrey
Poder e ter força ao longo do tempo
Ophah… https://t.co/uob185efpW
Hunto learning what that upper tax bracket life is like.
U didn't know bout jus got the seen seen seen 500k tax bill wowsers they didn't know camps cost plenty money...https://t.co/jltsTzIf4x
— mark richard hunt (@markhunt1974) April 27, 2016
You don't need to speak the language to understand that Teruto Ishihara has a wild twitter account.
昨夜、女王様に遊んでいただきました。
— Teruto Ishihara (@teruto_ko) April 27, 2016
(悪くなかった)#本当の自分を見つめ直せました #SM #調教願望あり #される側ね pic.twitter.com/P5pE1OgGsh
Apparently the Justice League ain't loyal.
@seanshelby I'm ready right now, yesterday, and tomorrow. Just a reminder! There's nobody out there like me, brother pic.twitter.com/K1alhyfHSi
— Matt Bessette (@ManglerBJJ) April 27, 2016
Bum Jones, huh? Okay Frye might have a point about the trash talking thing.
This could have ended so, so badly.
Flip book of Esther Lin's great work.
The fact that Mr. Tate has had such longevity as an insult speaks volumes to the low level of trash talk employed by most fighters.
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
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TODAY IN MMA HISTORY
2012: Invicta FC held it's inaugural event at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas. It was headlined by a catchweight bout between Marloes Coenen and Romy Ruyssen.
2007: Yuka Tsuji defended her Smackgirl lightweight championship, stopping Thricia Poovey with punches in the first round at Smackgirl - The Dance of the Taisho Romance. It was Tsuji's 4th title defense.
2002: Wanderlei Silva and Mirko Cro Cop fought to a draw at Pride 20: Armed and Ready in heavyweight bout contested under special rules wherein it was agreed that should the fight go to a decision it would be declared a draw. Also at the event Quinton "Rampage" Jackson began to build his reputation as king of the slam, stopping Masaaki Satake with a slam at the 7 minute mark in their fight.
1989: UFC welterweight Jonavin Webb was born.
Think I missed a spot? Found something you'd like to see in the Morning Report? Just hit me up on Twitter @JedKMeshew and we'll include it in tomorrow's column.
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