Conor McGregor has spoken out in response to the news that the UFC has stripped him of his featherweight belt.
Word filtered through last weekend that McGregor voluntarily 'relinquished' the strap, thus making Jose Aldo the champion of the division and leaving McGregor with just the lightweight title. Speculation about McGregor's willingness to part with the belt soon followed and speaking at a Q&A event in Belfast last night, McGregor assured the crowd that he still considers himself the featherweight champion.
"(The UFC are) trying to strip me and I was like, 'Well, I ain’t stripped. I still got that belt, that belt is still at home right now.' I’m still the two-way world champion, someone has to come take that from me. I see articles, I see stuff online, but I don’t see the belt not in my presence. The belt is right there, there’s two world titles at my home."
If you get a bang of one of these go toward the light pic.twitter.com/mTqoj8YDd8
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) December 2, 2016
"Eddie (Alvarez) is still unconscious, what do you mean? I only fought last week. Them belts are mine. Whatever they want to say, and they can say, 'Oh we took the belt and now it’s this guy’s belt,' you can play with those fake belts all you want. Jose was KO’ed, Eddie was KO’ed, you’re looking at the two-weight world champion and that’s it. I’ll say to the UFC, and I love their company, you’re fooling nobody, you’re fooling nobody with that."
He added:
"But best of luck to them, I still got them belts. Someone’s got to come take those belts from me, physically. Not online, not through a keyboard. The keyboard warriors trying to take them belts away from me, [but] you got to take them belts off me physically if you want to come get them."
McGregor also commented on the rumour that a fight between and Floyd Mayweather is on the horizon. 'The Notorious' was awarded a boxing license in California during the week, thus fuelling the speculation that he was putting plans in place to prepare for the bout.
But the Crumlin man stressed that he's not depending on the fight materialising.
"Originally what happened was Floyd called me up. That's originally what happened. I don't care about Floyd. I don't give a f--k about Floyd. I do not give a f--k about Floyd. I don't fear no man under no rule set. I'm sitting there minding my own business, dominating true fighting and Floyd calls me out and leaks a rumoUr that we're supposed to fight or something like that. So what I did was I opened up my eyes a little bit.
"I went, 'Hold on. Maybe I can pursue this. Maybe I can pursue the boxing side. Maybe there is something there.' So we went to it. We were in the background of negotiations and we'll see what happens. Now I have my boxing license. Now it's their move...Since I've got that boxing license, Floyd's fat manager came out and was like 'Oh Floyd's in the Bahamas, he doesn't care about Conor.' Well I don't give a f--k about Floyd either.
"If you don't want this fight then it's no problem."
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