It wasn't that long ago that I said that it appeared as though Conor McGregor had turned a corner and was going to stop being such a prick and bashing people verbally to advance his own career (this tactic has worked very well for him and I don't think it belongs in the sport.)
When he agreed to do a fight with Dustin Poirier and also offered to donate $500k to a charitable foundation regardless of the outcome I was thinking... hmm, maybe this guy has a soft side after all!
Well it appears as though the man hasn't really changed.
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It looked like it was all locked in. Conor looked like a "nice guy" for once when after getting KO'd in the 2nd round with his latest meeting with Poirier he actually conducted a decent post-fight interview, made no excuses, and then met with Poirier's wife in the locker room as she thanked "The Notorious One" for his promise of making a very sizeable donation to Poirier's "The Good Fight Foundation."
This donation never happened and after repeated attempts on the part of both Poirer and his foundation's officials to contact McGregor about the absence of the transfer, Dustin took to social media to call Conor out on it.
It all began when Conor predicted in an interview that he would KO Poirier in their upcoming final match in the trilogy on July 10th on a pay-per-view that no doubt was going to bring in a ton of money. As you may recall, the duo has met twice before, with each man winning one of the fights by KO. After Conor made his prediction, Poirier poked McGregor with the above tweet.
Conor is not one to take anything other than praise very so let's just say that he didn't exactly respond in the most professional manner.
Ah, it looks like my own prediction of Conor having a change of heart and stepping away from his asshole-ish ways was an incorrect one because this delay in transferring funds (whether innocent or not) and also going after someone in this way after the man brought up a very valid point (Conor did offer to make the donation, Dustin didn't even ask for it initially) and it hasn't been paid. I don't know if the process changes a great deal when we are talking about as large a sum as $500,000 but I have made bank transfers in the past and it took a few minutes. I wonder if Conor really is holding out on it or not. It's not like the guy doesn't have the money.
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Side note: I would have guessed he is worth much more than this
The fact that McGregor would call off the fight brings about a couple of questions in my mind and one of them is "is he actually allowed to do that?" We all know that Dana White is in love with McGregor because he brings in tons of money (Dana White's net worth is around half a billion,) but this, if it does end up sticking, could put a very large dent in that friendship.
The two ended their Twitter tirade (well, I would only consider Conor's part of it to be a "tirade") by both of them posting videos and images of them KO'ing the other.
There is one other possibility here though as well and that is that this is just another ruse to hype the fight even more and generate even more interest. I would imagine that Dana White is going to do everything he possibly can to make certain that the fight takes place in the end. Dana has the sole power to eliminate anyone's contract and while we all know it is very unlikely, he could send Conor packing and turn him inadvertently into a full-time boxer - perhaps facing off against one of those idiot Paul brothers.