Conor McGregor’s very public dispute with the UFC has many members of the MMA community passively choosing sides. While some members of the MMA community believe the McGregor is obligated to fulfill his media obligations ahead of UFC 200, because promo is part of his job, others like Don Frye believe that McGregor’s job is to fight, not promote fights.
Frye, who has often found himself going against UFC President Dana White, spoke to Submission Radio to discuss McGregor’s ongoing standoff with the UFC:
“I think he’s right. He’s spot on. That takes too much god damn time away from, you’re hired to be a fighter not to be an interview, interviewee. You’ve got things to do. When you’re training for a fight it’s a 24/7 job and if they’ve got you doing more interviews and promoting than they do fighting then you’re not gonna last long, you’re not gonna have a long career…It all depends on the time spent in the gym. That’s what Conor’s trying to tell them…[Diaz] is a really good fighter and then he comes in with phenomenal conditioning. Crimey how do you combat that when you’re flying around doing a bunch of interviews, more interviews than you do training. You’re just setting yourself up for an ass kicking.”
“How do I say this without being rude? I guess I can’t, so piss on it. Dana likes everything his way and if he doesn’t get his way he throws a fit and that’s what’s happening. Conor’s spot on. You can’t spend more time doing interviews than training. This is a dangerous sport okay. The thing is, it went from a fight, to a sport, to a TV show and it’s still a dangerous thing so you got to prepare yourself for it because shit, just training, if you’re in one of those fights and you’re not hurt, you don’t get hurt, it still takes two weeks to recover because of all the hard training. But if you’re not training, you’re gonna get hurt.”
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