Joe Rogan says UFC wanted Conor McGregor vs Donald Cerrone to be co-main event
There was a lot of buzz surrounding a potential lightweight fight between former champion Conor McGregor and former title challenger Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, but those plans appear to be put off for now. During last week’s UFC 236 press conference, UFC President Dana White seemed to be moved on from that idea.
Without giving an official reason as to why, White said that the UFC was looking at new opponents for Cerrone while McGregor was still hoping to get a rematch with current lightweight champion Khbaib Nurmagomedov. More light was shed on the matchup from UFC color commentator Joe Rogan during a recent episode of his JRE MMA show with guest Brendan Schaub.
During the show, Rogan revealed that the UFC scrapped the potential matchup between McGregor and Cerrone because the promotion wanted it to serve as a co-main event. The UFC’s standard has been to have title fights serve as the main event for all pay-per-view shows, but asking the company’s biggest star to fall into a co-main event slot is where things started to fall apart.
“They were trying to do Cowboy vs Conor and apparently the sticking point was that it was going to be a co-main event. I think the idea is that they have to have world titles as main event for pay-per-view.” – Joe Rogan on JRE MMA Show
Rogan would go on to say that he believes McGregor is only focused on getting big fights rather than be more active in his path back to the title.
“I think he’s only interested in big fights, like things that excite him now because he’s got so much money and so much success. It’s just one of those things.”
Despite the fact that Cowboy and McGregor have a little bit of history, it appears that a fight between the two lightweight contenders won’t happen unless there is a title on the line.
Watch below for Rogan’s full comments on a potential McGregor vs Cerrone fight.
