Veteran MMA manager Ali Abdelaziz is not buying what Conor McGregor has been trying to sell.
McGregor suffered a serious knee injury seconds into his fight last Saturday against Max Holloway. McGregor bowed out of the fight just over a minute after the first bell rang for UFC 329’s main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nev.
Abdelaziz, who is the longtime manager of former McGregor rival Khabib Nurmagomedov, believes the Irishman fought through a preexisting injury. During a recent episode of the “Pound 4 Pound” podcast hosted by his clients Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo, Abdelaziz peddled the idea that a hurt McGregor still got in the octagon in order to get closer to fulfilling his contractual obligations with the UFC.
“Maybe he thought, ‘You know what? I’ve already got all my guaranteed money, and everybody’s going to say Conor just got injured. He didn’t get beat up,’” Abdelaziz said of McGregor during the podcast episode, via Bloody Elbow’s Harvey Leonard.
“… I think Conor took the easy way out. You just have to really, really fight all the way, especially with the amount of money he’s making and the people flying in.
“There are also two scenarios. Maybe he got injured a little bit in there, or maybe he’s like, ‘You know what? I owe you two fights. Here you go. One fight, and the second one I’ll give you in six or seven months, and then I’m out.’ That’s what I think.”
Abdelaziz also stated that he believed Holloway was going to “tune him up” because McGregor “isn’t the guy he used to be.” In Abdelaziz’s eyes, the injury gave McGregor an easy out from getting beaten up by the former “BMF” title holder.
Abdelaziz wasn’t alone in theorizing that the “Notorious” one may have been hurt before the match began. While McGregor immediately denied having any preexisting injuries, some pointed out that McGregor appeared to be favoring one side just moments before the fight.
Even former UFC champion Israel Adesanya stated earlier this week that he believed McGregor was lying.
