Conor McGregor and his camp have made much of the claim that he was injured going into the trilogy bout with Dustin Poirier a few weeks back. Whether it was chronic arthritis, stress fractures, or mystery illness, McGregor is claiming that had he entered the Octagon at 100% health, we would have seen a very different fight.
Anthony Smith is having none of it. The UFC fighter told Sirius XM’s Fight Nation that McGregor’s excuses are “very invalid”: “I would say Conor wasn’t any more hurt than Dustin was going into that fight.
Anthony Smith puts McGregor on BLAST “his excuses are very invalid to me”
That’s not me saying Conor wasn’t banged up or his legs weren’t bothering him or his shin wasn’t cracked up or whatever, but he wasn’t any more injured than Dustin Poirier was. That’s my perspective at it from an athlete.”
According to Smith, all athletes enter competition with one form of niggling injury or strain or another, and Conor’s excuse simply doesn’t stack up. Particularly in combat sports, where hard sparring is a required part of pre-fight training, small injuries and issues arise.
“It’s easy for a fan or someone who has never done it to say, ‘Oh, he was hurt.’ We’re all hurt. Every single one of us, every single time we fight. There’s not one person that can ever say they go in 100 percent healthy.
So his excuses are very invalid to me. To the general public, it makes sense that they people would buy into that excuse but Conor knows that all of us don’t buy it because we’re all hurt too.
That’s how I look at it, but he’s not lobbying to us. It’s to the general public, the buyers, the PPV buyers. Those are the people he needs to convince but he knows he’s never gonna convince us.”
Conor has long held the position that he fights not to impress the UFC elite or “serious” fight fans, but to make money. He recognized early in his career that there was more money in appealing to the braying masses than to any notion of sportsmanship. It’s part of what made McGregor into MMA’s biggest star, but with his losses stacking up, the act is starting to wear a little thin.
Smith concluded: ““Everyone who loses has an excuse. It’s new for Conor to be like that.”
Do you agree with Anthony Smith? Is McGregor just making up excuses for his loss, or is there some validity to the injury claims? Let us know in the comments.
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