Conor McGregor comes out of retirement 10 days after quitting
Sports
By
Mirror
| Apr 04, 2019
Conor McGregor has confirmed he will return to the UFC - a week after retiring for a second time.
Last week the Irishman claimed he was walking away for a second time via a short tweet.
But McGregor has now confirmed he will return to the Octagon while making a half-baked apology for his racial slur against Khabib Nurmagomedov’s wife.
On Wednesday, the former two-weight champion called his rival’s wife a “towel head” in a post that drew widespread condemnation.
He quickly deleted the tweet before later saying: “I want to move forward, with my fans of all faiths and all backgrounds.
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“All faiths challenge us to be our best selves. It is one world and one for all.
“Now see you in the Octagon.”
McGregor’s U-turn comes after UFC president Dana White has cast doubt on his retirement.
He said: "I think that there’s some things that Conor wants and I think that Conor wants to get together face to face, he and I, and we probably will in the next couple of weeks and we’ll get this thing figured out."
McGregor has long desired part-ownership of the UFC which was sold to Hollywood talent agency WME-IMG for $4billion in 2016.
He has featured in five of the six biggest pay-per-view events in the company's history, pulling in almost eight million buys in the United States.
The UFC also earned a significant sum from McGregor's defeat by Floyd Mayweather which generated £450million in 2017.
But White added: "Listen, who gets respected more than Conor McGregor does? Come on, the guy’s never been disrespected, definitely not by me. And he’s got a lot of money too.
"But he’s stuck on this thing where he wants a piece of the ownership and that’s just - if you look at basketball, Michael Jordan didn’t own a piece of the league, and the list goes on and on.
"Is Conor very valuable to the sport and to the brand, the UFC? Of course he is. That’s a tough one, but I think there’s other ways that we can make him happy."