UFC CEO Dana White anticipated Conor McGregor to enter the octagon in “early 2025”, after which he shifted his prediction to “in the fall this year”. Others have a special expectation for the way forward for “The Infamous” as a fighter, although.
Diego Lima, the supervisor and coach for former UFC light-weight champion Charles Oliveira, doesn’t take into account McGregor an choice for Oliveira’s subsequent bout within the UFC “as a result of I don’t suppose Conor fights anymore”. Talking with MMA Preventing, Lima stated he believes the Irishman has made a lot cash inside and out of doors the cage he has misplaced starvation and want to compete.
“There’s no cause to bark up the flawed tree, I actually don’t consider anymore,” Lima stated. “When he achieved the whole lot he might and have become the highest-paid athlete on the planet, surpassing Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Floyd Mayweather and each NFL and NBA participant, he acquired to some extent the place nobody imagined a MMA fighter would ever get.
“You don’t prepare with the identical starvation, you don’t have the identical focus. And perhaps he’s not flawed. He’s reached one thing many thought of unreachable. Actually, I don’t consider he fights once more. ‘Oh, however what if he does battle once more?’ Then we’d be discussing what ifs. Would that be cool? After all it might. After all that Charles desires to battle him. However there’s no level discussing it as a result of, for my part, he doesn’t battle anymore. He’s not an choice proper now.”
McGregor joined the UFC in April 2013 and fought seven occasions in two and a half years to win the undisputed featherweight title. Since then, excluding a really profitable boxing showdown with Mayweather, McGregor has solely put gloves on seven occasions in simply over six years, going 3-4 within the UFC.
For Lima, the truth that McGregor has used his fortune to construct a camp round him each time he fights, as a substitute of being a part of a crew, has additionally modified his fireplace as an athlete.
“For my part, a fighter with no [team] flag is a fighter with no spirit,” Lima stated. “Extra essential than the conflict itself is who’s subsequent to you in it. Individuals are promoting themselves rather a lot in MMA as we speak, sadly. Folks change groups and coaches such as you change underwear. You’ll by no means know who’s in your nook. You’re there combating and also you rent an individual to be in your nook however you don’t know what that individual desires. Typically they need you to win simply so that you rent and pay them once more. Is that the fitting individual to have by your aspect? Somebody who simply desires your victory to your cash?
“I feel [MMA] has misplaced the essence of the martial artwork a bit bit. Though MMA is a job, the game that grows essentially the most on the planet, MMA is totally completely different from soccer. You’ve got 10 different folks to the touch the ball to in soccer, you could be substituted. MMA is essentially the most crew sport of the person sports activities. The cage closes and also you’re alone there with the opposite individual. It’s your nostril, your blood, so it’s extraordinarily essential to know who’s by your aspect. I feel {that a} fighter that treats himself as an object has no essence to look at for.”
