UFC President Dana White insists that the decision to strip Conor McGregor of his featherweight title was to avoid a "logjam" of contenders at 145lbs.
Speaking to Yahoo Sports, White claimed that McGregor was on board with the decision, considering he had let him have two fights with Nate Diaz and his bout with Eddie Alvarez in New York to take the lightweight crown.
"Look, I let Conor fight [Nate] Diaz and then I let him fight Diaz again," White said referring to the pair's bouts at UFC 196 and UFC 202.
"Then there was the whole 155-pound thing I let him do. But at the end of the day, him doing that tied up the division for a year. There’s a logjam there and a lot of guys were [angry].
"This was my way to fix the logjam. I wanted Aldo to fight Holloway for the belt, but he needed more time. So I looked at it and I said, well, it makes sense to make Aldo the champion and then have Holloway and Pettis fight for the interim title, and when Jose’s ready, barring any crazy injuries, the winner can fight him."
Pettis and Holloway will now meet on December 10 in Toronto to fight for the interim featherweight belt, with Max Holloway having reeled off nine consecutive wins since losing to McGregor in 2013. Pettis, meanwhile, arrested his run of three defeats at lightweight when he dropped down to featherweight to take on Charles Oliveira.
While McGregor has remained quiet during all of this, his coach John Kavanagh created headlines by saying that the decision to strip the Irishman of the title is "ridiculous".
"He’s misinformed," White said of the comments. "Yeah, he doesn’t know all that has gone on, I guess. Do you think I just did this? This was Conor’s decision."
News also emerged yesterday that McGregor has been granted a boxing license in California, further fuelling speculation of a much rumoured boxing match against Floyd Mayweather.
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