Dana White Isn't Going To Punish Conor McGregor, Is He?

It’s been almost a month since Conor McGregor flipped out during UFC 223’s media day and injured several fighters. In that time (previously outraged) UFC president Dana White, has done absolutely nothing to the 29-year-old Irish fighter.

As MMAJunkie points out, it really feels like White and the UFC are going to pass on dishing out serious punishment to their biggest star. When talking to a TMZ cameraman this weekend, White said he was waiting for the legal process to play out before deciding on any discipline.

Here are his exact words when asked about taking action against McGregor:

"“We’ll see. We’ll see what happens. … He’s got to be punished by the law first, but let’s see what happens in New York.”"

If White was as outraged as he claimed to be at the time, shouldn’t he have suspended and fined McGregor the day of the incident? Why is he waiting this out? The longer it takes to issue some kind of punishment, the more people are going to believe the whole Barclays meltdown was just a publicity stunt gone bad.

Frankly, it seems like this is heading towards the UFC giving McGregor a token fine once he works out some kind of sweetheart plea deal in New York. Then they’ll announce a big fight between the Irishman and Khabib Nurmagomedov for the lightweight title and all will be right in the UFC world.

Let’s be real here: McGregor is by far the UFC’s biggest draw and he hasn’t been in the octagon since November 12, 2016. That’s more than 17 months out of mixed martial arts. The company simply can’t afford for him to miss any more time, so a lengthy suspension or a harsh punishment that could hurt negotiations almost certainly won’t be coming.

Dana White can act as outraged as he wants at Conor McGregor’s actions, but until he actually does something about them it’s all just talk. McGregor is now clearly the most powerful man in mixed martial arts and it appears he’s dictating terms to the UFC’s president.