The notorious Conor McGregor has revealed in an Instagram post the cause of the cancelation of the Chandler fight. McGregor revealed that the reason he pulled out was breaking a toe. Conor stated , “We had a lapse in concentration and engaged in a training session without wearing the full protective gear and I hit the toe off the elbow and broke the toe clean”. So, it seems Conor broke his toe whilst sparring.
This is pretty good news in itself as there was a lot of worry about why McGregor was out of the fight and what happened. Given Conor was out with a substantial leg injury there was worry he had reinjured the same leg. Thankfully he just broke his toe which although not ideal is far from the worst injury one can get. This should be able to heal relatively quickly In fact McGregor himself said, “It needs a few weeks that’s it”.
Why Conor Pulled Out
McGregor has recently gone into fights injured before such as the Khabib fight and the Poirier trilogy so what changed? Well for one thing in those examples McGregor lost those fights in bad fashion. Particularly the Poirier fight saw McGregor suffer a major leg injury as the result of going into the fight injured. So perhaps Conor has learned his lesson about going in injured.
There’s also the fact Conor only has 2 fights left in his contract and may intend on not re-signing after his contract is up. And so with that McGregor could want to make the last of his last fights in the UFC. And to do that ideally Conor wouldn’t want to be injured. McGregor in the post said, “This next walk has got to be, and it will be, 100% Conor McGregor”. This clearly shows he wants to be able to perform.
Youth is another factor. A younger McGregor may have been able to push through something like this but current McGregor no. In fact in his youth he did push through injuries such as against Chad Mendes where he had an injured ACL and won. Similarly against Max Holloway had a torn ACL and won. But , now Conor is older and needs to take care of his body more now.
What this means is we should have McGregor back relatively soon perhaps in a month or two. It’s likely that the UFC will just reschedule the Chandler fight at a later date. So, if Conor heals up nicely expect an announcement in the not to distant future.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
