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Conor McGregor 'retires': Dana White confirms 'The Notorious' will not be at UFC 200

The UFC president could not confirm nor deny whether McGregor's 'retirement' was genuine

James Edwards
Wednesday 20 April 2016 07:23 BST
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Conor McGregor
Conor McGregor

It is unclear whether Conor McGregor has retired or not but, at this point in time, it appears he won't be fighting at UFC 200.

Speaking to ESPN’s SportsCenter on Tuesday evening, UFC president Dana White confirmed that McGregor had been pulled from the event for failing to attend a promotional press conference this week in Las Vegas.

The news followed a cryptic message sent from McGregor’s Twitter account earlier that day, which claimed he had “decided to retire young.”

"Well, what's happened is, we've pulled Conor McGregor from UFC 200," White said. “We're working on other fights right now.

“Conor did not want to come to Las Vegas [this week] to film the commercial or be a part of any of the marketing that we have. He's in Iceland training and [not participating in the marketing] is not possible,” he added.

White could not confirm nor deny whether McGregor had retired but suggested that the UFC featherweight champion’s tweet was a consequence of his removal from the card.

“We've had other instances like this where guys didn't want to do the press conference, [but] you have to. You have to do the press conference, so Conor put out that tweet. Is Conor McGregor retiring? Only he could answer that question."

"Obviously, we still have a good relationship with Conor," White added. "I respect Conor as a fighter and I like him as a person. But you can't decide not to show up to these things. You have to do it."

McGregor, as it stands, will not fight at the milestone pay-per-view event, earmarked for July 9.

White said that Diaz would fly into Las Vegas for discussions regarding and new opponent and another fight would be added to the event’s card.

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