At this point, Team Jorge Masvidal don’t take seriously what pops up on Conor McGregor’s Twitter feed. Whether McGregor is talking business, talking trash, or talking up a fight, the reality is different.
“Every time he’s ever tweeted, or anybody’s ever tweeted that name at us or Jorge, I do the following: I call [UFC executive] Hunter [Campbell], I say, ‘Hey Hunter, what’s good? You saw Conor?’” Masvidal manager Malki Kawa said Wednesday on The MMA Hour. “[Hunter says], ‘Yeah, he doesn’t want that fight.’ OK, boom. Every single time. It never fails.
“And look, I don’t know if that’s real, or not real, but I know that they said they’ve tried to make that fight a couple times – Conor will not take it. And you’ve heard [UFC President] Dana [White], Jorge’s too big for him, and that’s the end of that story. So listen, if they wanted to make that fight, our end accepts no matter what. We’re all in.”
Recently, McGregor wasn’t talking up a future meeting, but throwing shade over the cancellation of Masvidal’s fight against Leon Edwards at UFC 269. The former two-division champ echoed Edwards by implying Masvidal had ducked the matchup.
What’s really going on, Masvidal said, is that McGregor is salty he couldn’t collect a piece of Edwards’ fight purse; the Irish star is managed by the same firm, Paradigm Sports, and has been alleged to have an ownership stake in the company.
Not only that, but Masvidal echoed others in the MMA community who’ve been targeted by McGregor in the months since he lost a trilogy to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 and suffered a broken leg. The real reason for McGregor’s tirades, they say, has more to do with depression and drug abuse than with genuine grievance. For Masvidal, the former fuels the latter.
“I think he is a bitter old man just screaming at the TV all day,” he said. “It sucks for him that he’s broken. He’s gotten broken so many times that he can’t put himself back together as far as fighting goes. Like, go have a regular life, bro. This dude’s gonna end up snorting himself to death. So I’m not worried about him. I’m just trying to get big paychecks and fight. You go to rehab, motherf*cker, and treat older people the right way. When they sign us to fight, I’ll teach you some respect.
“I couldn’t really care less for him. He’s a 145-er – I’m a 170-pounder. Full-grown man size. Have him deal with fun-size. I’ve always addressed this when it comes up – we’re not even going to entertain this f*cking cockroach. He’s mad because what’s-his-face is signed to whatever the f*ck his company’s called, and they were going to collect the biggest paycheck they were ever going to collect off my ass fighting and beating Leon’s ass. It’s not going to happen anymore, so you can see the bitterness get exposed, but he just picked the wrong dude.
“He can still get that paycheck, but mini-ass midget doesn’t want to tell his guy, ‘Yo, wait up, just fight him later and we’ll still get that paycheck’ – it might even be bigger because there’s more publicity behind it. But he’s a corny midget f*ck. So what do you say?”
Masvidal still hopes Edwards will accept a rescheduled booking in March. If Edwards doesn’t accept, he said he’ll move on to a grudge match with Colby Covington or any other top five fighter who will keep him near the top of the division.
As far as he’s concerned, the ship to fight Conor McGregor sailed a long time ago. But he’s trying to follow in the ex-champ’s footsteps by earning a ton of money and then retiring.