Conor McGregor made it clear he doesn’t want to fight injured ever again, which played a huge part in his decision to drop out of UFC 303 after suffering a broken toe in training.
Coming off a broken leg and a three-year long absence, the Irish superstar doesn’t want to leave anything to chance, especially as he prepares to face a known finisher like Michael Chandler. While many fans are disappointed that McGregor is no longer competing Saturday, UFC legend Matt Brown says the former two-division champion is totally justified pulling out of a fight if he’s not actually healthy.
The problem is McGregor built his reputation on always showing up and he famously mocked Rafael dos Anjos after the Brazilian dropped out of their scheduled matchup in 2016 after he suffered a broken foot.
“Unfortunately the initial reaction was we all remembered him and Rafael dos Anjos, right?” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “Unfortunately, that was the first thing we thought about. Realistically, a broken toe is a perfectly fine reason to pull out of a fight. A f*cking broken toe sucks. It hurts. You shouldn’t go in with injuries like that. Who knows why it happened, how it happened, the truth behind what’s actually going on because I think there’s a lot of questions on how or why or if this actually happened? Let’s just assume it is [true], you’re going to go in and fight Michael Chandler with a broken pinky toe and you can’t put your weight on it, you can’t move around, you can’t do your footwork. Foolish. Pull out of the f*cking fight.
“No one with any sense is mad at you other than the fact that when Rafael dos Anjos did it with an actual broken foot, you were a f*cking dick about it.”
In a turning of the tables, dos Anjos was quick to remind McGregor about the numerous comments he made eight years ago after he missed out on his initial chance at becoming a two-division UFC champion.
McGregor spewing insults at dos Anjos back then made him an easy target after he revealed the nature of the injury that forced him out of UFC 303.
“What goes around comes around,” Brown said. “The karma is real. Now Conor’s dealing with it. If he would have just kept his mouth shut, then it would be total respect. You talk shit about other people doing it and then you go and do it.”
When it comes to the actual injury, Brown can’t say exactly what McGregor is dealing with because the term “broken toe” doesn’t really tell him the extent of the damage. A simple fracture in the bone is far different than potential tendon or ligament damage that could keep McGregor sidelined longer than his initial projection to return by August or September.
In reality, Brown believes no matter the severity of the injury, McGregor’s decision not to fight Chandler at UFC 303 was tactical as much as it may have been practical.
“That 1-3 in his last four is the biggest part of that whole thing,” Brown said. “If he was in this situation and he was coming off a four-fight win streak, I think this whole conversation would be totally different. But coming off 1-3 in his last four, he’s right — don’t go in there unless you’re 100 percent. Why would you take that risk?
“We’ve talked many times about the ego that he has and that he needs to be fulfilled when he goes in and fights. That’s why he’s coming back to fight, it’s an ego thing. The last thing he can do is risk that being touched up. If he goes in there and gets his ass whooped, which he might, he will need rehab after that. You know he’s going to dive in the snow, he’s going to go skiing.”
All jokes aside, Brown acknowledged that while McGregor’s star power may not be too badly diminished by another loss, there’s still an inherent risk in going in there against somebody as dangerous as Chandler.
Possibly falling to 1-4 in five fights off a three-year long absence and turning 36 in July, McGregor doesn’t have many more opportunities to climb back to the top of the ladder in the UFC. That’s exactly why McGregor couldn’t chance fighting Chandler on the broken toe.
“Realistically if he loses to Michael Chandler, his money fights from here on out would be the Jake Pauls, the f*cking sideshow shit,” Brown said. “They’re not going to be meaningful fights, that’s what I was getting at. He’ll never have a meaningful fight again [if he loses].”
