Conor McGregor would love to add a third UFC title to his collection. But he’s not all that excited about a potential showdown with reigning welterweight champion Kamaru Usman.
As he prepares to fight at 170 pounds for the third time inside the Octagon, the former two-division champ hinted he may stick around the weight class longer than his upcoming bout against Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone at UFC 246.
Two names from the welterweight division that were brought up on Wednesday during the pre-fight press conference were Usman and “BMF” champion Jorge Masvidal. He’s mentioned both as possible future fights, but McGregor acknowledged one of them would definitely be more favorable than the other.
“That’s an interesting one, what would I be interested in more – I’d take both,” McGregor said. “I would like that bad motherf*cker title, that belt, then I’d like the gold. For me, the gold has a bit more significance to it, especially since the way the ‘BMF’ fight finished. I thought we were robbed of aa classic contest there. I thought it was only kicking into gear rounds 4 and 5. But they’re both exciting bouts.
“I’d say probably the more exciting of the bouts would probably be myself versus Jorge, from a stylistic standpoint. Usman kind of has the similar style of Khabib [Nurmagomedov], the sniff-the-jockstrap style.”
Unfortunately for McGregor, he fell to Khabib by fourth-round rear naked choke when they met back in 2018. Usman has already sent a warning to McGregor if he has ambitions about coming for the welterweight title.
“I mean we saw what Khabib [Nurmagomedov] did to him,” Usman told MMA Fighting earlier this month. “He had to take some time off after the Khabib fight. Now imagine him fighting me. I don’t think we ever see him back in the sport.”
Whether it’s Usman or Masvidal, McGregor definitely seems interested in exploring more fights at 170 pounds – assuming he can get through Cerrone.
“We’ll see what happens,” McGregor said. “I’m enjoying myself at 170. I’m underweight right now. I feel good, I feel energetic, light, fast, accurate and precise. I feel good here.”