UFC
Conor McGregor says he was ready to walk away from MMA just before getting call to fight in the UFC
Mar 30, 2015 - 6:20:57 PM Conor McGregor says he was ready to walk away from MMA just before getting call to fight in the UFC

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

"There's many ups and downs in the fight game. There's many times where you have these conversations where you want to do it, you don't want to do it... As you know, outside the UFC, [MMA fighting] is not financially secure. So, I was unsure of what to do. A longtime teammate of mine had got some bad news from too many wars inside the Octagon. So, you know, I sat back, and the UFC had not called at this stage where I had two gold belts wrapped around my waist, and I was thinking, 'I don't think I want to do this. Maybe, maybe this is not for me.' If this happened to my friend, who came up with me in the game and now he cannot compete anymore... And he is UFC-caliber, also. But he never got his opportunity. So I sat back and had essentially walked away from the sport. I was out of the gym for maybe three, four weeks, which is ... I am never out of the gym for three to four weeks.

I was sitting in my friend's car at one stage and the phone rang. It was from Iceland. My coach was in Iceland with my teammate Gunnar [Nelson]. He was preparing to fight. And it rang, and it rang. And I did not want to answer, because I had not been in the gym for four weeks and I coached the boxing class at the gym. So, for every Tuesday for [those] four weeks I was missing. I didn't text anyone. I didn't show up. I was just done. I was gone."

-In an appearance on The Fighter and the Kid podcast last week, Conor McGregor talked about how close he came to walking away from MMA just prior to getting a call to fight in the UFC (transcribed by FoxSports.com).

Penick's Analysis: McGregor went on to say that when he finally answered his phone, he was asked about taking his first fight in the UFC. That's when he decided to go all-in on his MMA career, and just two years later he's on the cusp of greatness if he can take the UFC Featherweight Title from Jose Aldo. It's a remarkable turnaround in mindset, because he has been flat-out great in the UFC. There's no denying what he's actually done in the cage; though he's getting the title fight earlier than most would have because of how well he's done selling himself more than anything, he's taken full advantage of his spot when it's come time to actually fight. If he does the same against Aldo, it will cap this turnaround off on a massive high. Still, no matter what happens in the fight itself, he's almost assuredly worked himself into the biggest payday of his career, and is very, very far removed from the life he was living just a short time ago.