Ariel Helwani was joined by his MMAFighting.com colleagues Luke Thomas and Shaun Al-Shatti to give their views on Conor McGregor's statement which has consumed the world of MMA media since it's release on Thursday evening.
The three journalists were in Las Vegas for UFC 197 which takes place this weekend, but the eyes of the world, or at least the internet, are firmly on what is happening with Conor McGrgeor and after acknowledging that undeniable truth at the start of the video they began to try and explain what has happened, and where we go from here.
And it was typically excellent. In particular, Luke Thomas' thoughts on why many UFC fighters who had mocked the "retirement" tweet online had changed their tune once they heard what McGregor had to say.
You can see the discussion in question from 6:30 in the video below:
When it first came out that Conor was like "Oh well I don't wanna do this" everyone was like "Conor's a diva!", and he kind of is, he's got a right to be.
But when he made it about "Man, I lost a fight, and I lost the fight because I wasn't doing things I was supposed to be doing, I wasn't training the right way, I got lost in this." I think every fighter out there, especially when they're cutting weight on fight-week, they don't like talking to us.
They don't like doing any of these things, and that's a thing at large, and when you marry that with his accomplishments and his contributions, I think a lot of fighters were like "That's quite reasonable", and I think it is.
It seems somewhat of a shame that the return of Jon Jones at UFC 197 has been overshadowed by the drama involving McGregor's involvement on a card that is still months away, but again that just goes to show the level of power that Conor has earned for himself, and will no doubt help his position regarding getting back in that UFC 200 main-event.
[via MMAFighting.com on YouTube]
