Conor McGregor has said the UFC thwarted his attempts to set up a boxing match with YouTube star Logan Paul.
McGregor, who has not fought since breaking his leg in a 2021 UFC loss, was rumoured to face Paul in an exhibition bout in India. But this week, footage showed McGregor and Paul speaking before Donald Trump’s second inauguration as US President, with the Irishman suggesting the moment for the fight had passed.
“You kept your mouth shut, you did,” McGregor, 36, told Paul, 29, before adding in a hushed tone: “I thought we were gonna get the fight going, you were very quiet […] You’re giving it all this, ‘Dana this, Dana that.’ You’re f***ing controlled by the WWE as well, bro.”
McGregor was referring to UFC president Dana White – who publicly dismissed the boxing match – and the fact that Logan has starred in WWE since 2021. Now, the former MMA champion has gone into more depth on why the fight collapsed, despite UFC and WWE having the same owners: TKO Group Holdings.
“The UFC just aren’t into it,” McGregor told The Schmo. “The offer was there on the table, in writing, both ‘athletes’ we’ll say – he’s not a fighter, but whatever – are under the TKO banner.
“UFC, WWE, both rising up. The stock price of TKO Holding Group through the roof. New market in India opened up and booming. It was business savvy and business sense to make the fight happen, or should I say: ‘the glorified spar happen’.
“In between this waiting period that we find ourselves in, before I can get back to the Octagon, it made perfect sense on the calendar to go ahead with it. The UFC weren’t into it. I’m not sure the WWE… what their interest in it was; I just knew the UFC weren’t into it.
“Logan, he just kept quiet, didn’t say nothing. I was like: ‘You need to say something…’ I wasn’t talking to him directly. He put up this video and edited it like I’d sent him a voice note. I was talking to the f***ing crowd, that was the Ambani royal family of India, and then they were sending it to him – basically trying to get him to get going. I had no problem doing it.”
McGregor was due to fight Michael Chandler in the UFC in June 2024, but suffered a broken toe that ruled him out of the bout. Chandler, who had been waiting on McGregor since February 2023, moved on to another fight, losing to Charles Oliveira in November.
UFC president White has insisted that McGregor’s next fight will take place in the UFC, yet the Irishman told The Schmo: “I am more inclined now for this influencer f***ing whatever-you-call-it, because it’s astronomical money. It’s astronomical, the figures […] It’s an interesting little ‘side-pocket branch’, we’ll call it.”
Last week, it was reported that a woman is suing McGregor after accusing him of sexual assault in 2023. The woman was previously unsuccessful in getting criminal charges filed, and is also suing employees at the basketball arena where she alleges the attack took place during a Miami Heat game.
In November, a civil-court jury in Ireland awarded €250,000 to a different woman, who said she was “brutally raped and battered” by McGregor in 2018.
