Photo by Chris Unger / Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
- The UFC president Dana White is angry at the marquee fighter Conor McGregor.
- The Irish striker recently leaked private Instagram messages involving White.
- Following the UFC 253 event on Fight Island, White told reporters that “it’s one of the dirtiest things you can do.”
- White appeared to say it violated a “man code” that “even the ladies” know.
- The UFC boss also downplayed any bout agreement involving McGregor and the eight-weight boxing champion Manny Pacquiao. “I have no idea,” he said.
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The UFC boss Dana White is fuming at Conor McGregor for breaking a “man code” and leaking their private Instagram messages online.
At a post-event press conference inside Fight Island’s Flash Forum in Abu Dhabi, White told reporters, “it’s one of the dirtiest things you can do.”
It regards an incident earlier in the week in which McGregor began posting on Twitter, and included screenshots of messages he and White had been exchanging in the months that followed the Irishman’s 40-second victory over Donald Cerrone in January.
McGregor was proposing a headlining fight in Los Angeles, potentially involving the UFC veteran Diego Sanchez who challenged for the lightweight championship in 2009 but lost to B.J. Penn and then embarked on a win-loss streak in the decade that followed.
White appeared to laugh off the proposal, saying the UFC should lose it’s license to hold events should it sanction a fight between McGregor, who remains one of the better competitors in the lightweight to welterweight divisions, and Sanchez, who is 39 and well past his prime.
—Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) September 25, 2020
"I've had people blowing me up left and right," White said Saturday, acknowledging the leak.
"I mean, everybody here knows — even the ladies — this is man code stuff. It's just something you don't do. It's one of the dirtiest things you can do."
White continued: "We were just talking about Diego Sanchez. And Diego Sanchez is in there and a private conversation I was having with Conor.
"When you're the No.2 or No.3-ranked guy in the world and you're telling me you want to fight, but you want to fight unranked 39-year-old Diego Sanchez in a main-event in Los Angeles … you know."
White added he doesn't know about a Manny Pacquiao mega-fight
Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images
The Instagram leak was not the only headline McGregor caused this week.
He also tweeted an apparent bout agreement between himself and the former eight-weight world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao.
Though McGregor said he would be boxing Pacquiao next in the Middle East, Pacquiao's representative Sean Gibbons laughed off the suggestion of an agreement, implying that the Irishman may have been drinking when he tweeted.
But in a Team Pacquiao statement to CNN Philippines, it seemed an agreement might happen as Pacquiao wants to donate the fight proceedings to help toward COVID-19 relief in his home country.
White, though, claimed he is none-the-wiser about such a deal.
"I have no idea," he said.
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