McGregor says he agreed to UFC 224 fight

Former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor said in an Instagram post on Wednesday that he had agreed to a fight at UFC 224 before “something came up.”

Referring to his fourth-place spot on Forbes’ ranking of 2017’s highest-paid athletes, McGregor wrote in his post: “Made it to number four on the Forbes list this year. If I had of (sic) fought on the agreed May 12 bout in Rio de Janeiro, I would have surpassed (Cristiano) Ronaldo and (Lionel) Messi to take second place. Something came up however…Ah well, still under 30.”

UFC 224 was held May 12 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, with a women’s bantamweight title bout between Amanda Nunes and Raquel Pennington serving as the main event.

MMAFighting.com reported last month that McGregor was scheduled to fight Rafael dos Anjos for an interim welterweight title at UFC 224. Such a fight would have given McGregor a chance to become the first in UFC history to claim a belt in three different weight classes.

That potential matchup also carries a history, as dos Anjos had been scheduled to defend his lightweight belt against McGregor in the spring of 2016 before pulling out due to a foot injury. McGregor claimed the belt from Eddie Alvarez that November after Alvarez won it from dos Anjos in July.

McGregor’s comment regarding something that “came up” to prevent his appearance at UFC 224 is presumably a reference to his rampage at UFC 223’s media day in April. He was charged with three counts of assault and one count of criminal mischief after attacking a charter bus carrying UFC fighters, including Khabib Nurmagomedov, at Barclays Center in New York, throwing a moving dolly through a window and injuring other fighters.

McGregor is due in court in New York on June 14.

The 29-year-old was stripped of his featherweight and lightweight belts in April due to inactivity, having first taken time off when his first child was born and then training and fighting against Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match last August.

–Field Level Media