Conor McGregor: UFC Star Offered $2 Million to Fight for Russian MMA Promotion, Reports Say

It looks like UFC star Conor McGregor is out of UFC 200 in July. (Steve Marcus/Getty Images)

Dave Martin

Dave Martin is a New-York based writer as well as editor. He is the sports editor for the Epoch Times and is a consultant to private writers.

View profile

April 28, 2016Updated: April 28, 2016

biggersmaller

Conor McGregor is out of UFC 200 in July, but that doesn’t mean he’s not in demand.

According to Karim Zidan of Bloody Elbow, the 27-year-old Irish MMA star has received a $2 million offer from Russian promotion Fight Nights Global to take on Rasul Mirzaev as the undercard of the Fedor Emelianenko/Fabio Maldonado heavyweight bout on June 17. Zidan received the news Wednesday from Russian MMA journalist Alexey Safonov.

McGregor received a formal offer from the promotion. @from_safonov confirmed the news with Mirzaev.

— Karim Zidan (@ZidanSports) April 27, 2016

Unfortunately for McGregor (and MMA fans) the star fighter is under contractual obligations to the UFC and would not be able to take the offer even if he wanted to.

The move would appear to be more of a PR stunt than anything.

@sayatmma One of their investors is Dagestan billionaire Ziyavudin Magomedov. They have the money.

— Karim Zidan (@ZidanSports) April 27, 2016

McGregor’s UFC 200 status went up in the air last week when he suddenly announced his retirement in a tweet on Tuesday. Arguably UFC’s biggest star, McGregor was set to fight Nate Diaz in a rematch of UFC 196 in March, which was stunningly won by Diaz via a second-round submission.

[morearticles]2031884[/morearticles]

UFC President Dana White announced—just hours after McGregor’s retirement tweet—that McGregor was taken off the UFC 200 card due to his unwillingness to fly out to Las Vegas and do promotions for the fight. McGregor then posted a message on Facebook two days later, saying he wasn’t retired, still wanted to do UFC 200, and explained his issue with the mandatory promotions.

UFC’s Dana White: Conor McGregor can fight at any event he wants… except #UFC200 https://t.co/FqtiHb05Sp

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) April 27, 2016

Diaz, for his part, said he didn’t want to fight anyone but McGregor.

The whole turn-of-events forced White to remove the coveted McGregor/Diaz main event of UFC 200 in favor of a Jon Jones/Daniel Cormier rematch—despite a confusing tweet Monday by McGregor that said he was back on for UFC 200.

No Conor McGregor after all?

ICYMI: Jones-Cormier rematch is the new main card at #UFC200. https://t.co/ofdbObBIJU pic.twitter.com/OjKvjKLL0C

— ESPN (@espn) April 28, 2016

As for when McGregor will fight again, only he knows. According to White though, he’d like to get him back as soon as possible.