Conor McGregor announces retirement on Twitter immediately after Amanda Nunes' win at UFC 250
Conor McGregor is apparently calling it a career.
The famed Irish fighter, just minutes after Amanda Nunes’ dominant win over Felicia Spencer at UFC 250, announced his retirement on Twitter on Saturday night.
“Hey guys I’ve decided to retire from fighting,” he wrote. “Thank you all for the amazing memories! What a ride it’s been! Here is a picture of myself and my mother in Las Vegas post one of my world title wins! Pick the home of your dreams Mags I love you! Whatever you desire it’s yours.”
Hey guys I’ve decided to retire from fighting.
Thank you all for the amazing memories! What a ride it’s been!
Here is a picture of myself and my mother in Las Vegas post one of my World title wins!
Pick the home of your dreams Mags I love you!
Whatever you desire it’s yours ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Dh4ijsZacZ— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) June 7, 2020
UFC president Dana White said he hadn’t talked with McGregor before his tweet, and that someone had shown him the retirement announcement for the first time after it was live.
While it may have shocked some of the sports world, White wasn’t that surprised.
“That’s Conor,” White said after UFC 250 in Las Vegas. “You know how Conor works. That’s how he does things.”
Given the current state of the world — with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging and massive protests and riots taking place in cities across the country after George Floyd’s death in Minnesota late last month — he said he understands why McGregor might want to call it, too.
“If these guys want to sit out and retire right now or anybody feels uncomfortable in any way, shape or form with what’s going on, you don’t have to fight. It is all good,” White said. “So if that’s what Conor’s feeling right now … I feel ya.
“It’s not like I’m going, ‘Holy s--t, this is crazy. This is nuts.’ Nothing is crazy and nuts right now because everything is crazy and nuts right now. So, on a certain level, I totally understand it and get it.”
McGregor is fresh off his win against Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone at UFC 249 in January, when he knocked Cerrone out in just 40 seconds. He’s been very vocal about wanting a rematch against lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, and even accepted Anderson Silva’s challenge for a superfight late last month.
He’s also called out Justin Gaethje — who beat Tony Ferguson with a fifth-round TKO at UFC 249 to claim the interim lightweight title last month — and said he’d “butcher” him in the Octagon, though Gaethje wasn’t having it.
If his retirement is for real, he’ll finish his career with a 22-4 overall record. He’s done this before, however, retiring and then seemingly un-retiring in a series of tweets in 2019 amid a phone smashing incident and sexual assault investigation. He did it in 2016, too, with a simple tweet ending in “catch ya’s later.”
Only time will tell if this one sticks.
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