EDMONTON – Gavin Tucker isn’t about to let his victory over Seungwoo Choi be spoiled by Conor McGregor.
Tucker scoffed at the Irish star’s opinion of an illegal knee that cost him a point before a third-round submission victory.
“Who cares what Conor tweets,” Tucker told reporters, including MMA Junkie, after his ESPN-televised win at UFC 240. “Aren’t you guys sick of these tweets yet? Who cares? He’s been gone longer than I have. Who cares.”
In a refrain that’s become all too familiar to followers of McGregor’s recent career, the former two-division champ used his social media account to weigh in on referee Marc Goddard’s performance.
McGregor isn’t a neutral party when it comes to Goddard, who famously shooed the Irish star out of the cage when he crashed his teammate’s post-fight celebration in Bellator.
Although it appeared to some as though Tucker was arguing with the veteran referee, he said there was no hostile intent as he sought to clarify whether Choi was downed when he attempted a knee. He also took responsibility for his errant strike.
“I can see how easily it happens,” Tucker said. “I’m a pretty level-headed guy. I don’t get too swept up in what you might call instinctual fighting. I’m pretty clear-headed, I thought, but now I see how easy it is to make a mistake like that.
“It was a sincere mistake. I’m not a dirty fighter. I would never do that intentionally, or what I thought would even happen unintentionally.”
After a litany of challenges outside the cage kept him out of the cage for almost two years, Tucker is thrilled to be back in the win column.
“I wasn’t arguing (with Goddard) at all,” he said. “I was apologizing. We don’t speak the same language, but I think he got the point. I told Marc that was unintentional. I wasn’t argumentative, but I was questioning whether I made the right call, and he made the call.”
For complete coverage of UFC 240, check out the UFC results.
