Ultimate Fighting Championship

Dana White: 'Conor McGregor will not be stripped of title'

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Dana White is now revealing reigning featherweight champion Conor McGregor will indeed get to keep his 145-pound title

According to UFC President Dana White, his reigning featherweight champion Conor McGregor will not be stripped of his championship belt.

This announcement backtracks on White’s previous comments stating McGregor would be forced to defend his 145-pound title or give up his belt and challenge lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez.

McGregor (20-3) most recently walked away with bloody majority decision after 25-minutes of hard-fought action against Nate Diaz (19-11) at UFC 202. This avenged his previous loss to Diaz, who claimed victory with a second round submission in their initial welterweight bout at UFC 196 in March.

Alvarez (28-4), who earned his title after finishing then-champion Rafael dos Anjos with strikes in the first round at UFC Fight Night 90, has made it known he was seeking a “big money fight” against the winner of McGregor-Diaz

However, immediately following his victory, McGregor took to the mic and revealed he planned on completely the trilogy against Diaz, this time at 155-pounds. But White would later put a squash to any talks of a rubber match, stating McGregor had other obligations before facing Diaz for a third time.

“He’s not going to get stripped,” said White during an appearance on NBC Sports Radio. “He’s going to make a decision. He knows that the Nate Diaz fight isn’t the fight to make right now. He has to either defend his title or give it up and decide what he wants to do next.

“Think about this, Pacquiao-Mayweather, the build up for that fight, everything else. That fight didn’t live up to the hype and I think, more importantly, it left a really bad taste in people’s mouths. I don’t think that was the case for Diaz-McGregor [2]. With the amount of people that were pulled in to watch that fight, everybody left satisfied and those are the kind of fights that make you want to come back and watch again.”