The popular UFC star isn’t looking to fight at UFC 246 and take the rest of the year off, as Ariel Helwani of ESPN says he wants to fight at least three times in 2020.
”Okay, so he has laid out this plan that he wants to fight three times next year. And he hasn’t done that in over three years as well, so it’s a pretty lofty goal. But he believes that when he is active, then he’s not getting distracted, he’s not getting in trouble. He’s very focused. And people are telling me right now that they haven’t seen him this focused in a very long time. You hear this a lot in the fight game, but he’s going to sleep early, he’s waking up early. He wants to prove to everyone that thinks he’s shot that they are wrong. So he wants to fight January 18th - in fact, he wanted to fight in December but the UFC didn’t give him that opportunity. So he wanted to fight at the beginning of the year, then he wants to return towards spring (or) summer, maybe fight Jorge Masvidal or Nate Diaz,” Helwani said on SportsCenter (via Ryan Harkness of MMA Mania).
McGregor has only competed four times in the last three-plus years, which includes a gap of nearly two years between appearances at UFC 205 and UFC 229.
Helwani also reports that McGregor wants to end 2020 against UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, who defeated McGregor at UFC 229.
“Perhaps that’s why this fight is happening at 170, to prove that he can hang with the welterweights. And then he wants to fight at the end of the year against Khabib Nurmagomedov, if he is still the champion, in Moscow. He wants to right that wrong,” says Helwani.
UFC 246 takes place on Saturday, January 18 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
