Here is the Monday edition of MMA Rumors. With fight announcements, the odd piece of breaking news and more, we figured we’d change it up and throw some rumours at you. Today’s MMA rumours feature Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov 2, the Brian Ortega incident, and UFC 248 PPV buys from China.
MMA Rumors
Conor-Khabib 2
Rumour: Brett Okamoto of ESPN is reporting that Khabib will not accept a rematch with McGregor unless he fights and beats Justin Gaethje first.
Per Khabib Nurmagomedov's (@TeamKhabib) manager Ali Abdelaziz (@AliAbdelaziz00), if Khabib defeats Tony Ferguson on April 18, he would not accept a fight against Conor McGregor later this year unless McGregor fights and beats Justin Gaethje first. https://t.co/PkI3WPQZ39
— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) March 8, 2020
If McGregor wants another shot at Khabib he will need to fight and defeat Justin Gaethje first according to Khabib’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz. If this fight is to ever happen it has the potential to be the fight of the year in 2020. Both fighters possess nasty knockout power and will be looking to end it early. But, the big boss Dana White makes the decisions and in theory, the “money fight” is Conor-Khabib 2.
The Ortega Slap
Rumour: Multiple sources on twitter confirmed that Brian Ortega was involved in an incident with Chan Sung Jung in the crowd at UFC 248.
Brian Ortega getting escorted after trying to start a fight with Zombie pic.twitter.com/21FmOsZB8E
— // (@MirccMMA) March 8, 2020
It was later confirmed by Dana White that this in fact did happen. But it was actually between Ortega and Jung’s friend, rapper Jay Park. Ortega allegedly went up and slapped Park in the face while Jung was in the washroom, this all stems from an interview on the Ariel Helwani show where Park was Jung’s translator.
This was the moment that drew Ortega’s ire, it seemed https://t.co/90NEeZ3hwD
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) March 8, 2020
A weird situation for all and it gets worse for Ortega. According to MMA Junkie, a police report has been filed because of what happened.
A police report has been filed after the @KoreanZombieMMA @BrianTcity beef hit a boiling point Saturday at #UFC248.
Details: https://t.co/E0tRDOve1u pic.twitter.com/KSKwGPWu0G
— MMA Junkie (@MMAjunkie) March 9, 2020
PPV in China
Rumour: Zach Aittama from Combat Press shared on twitter that over 20 million people purchased the PPV for UFC 248.
Over 20 million people in China purchased Weili Zhang vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk #UFC248 pic.twitter.com/0YYih43wyD
— Bestrafer7 (@Bestrafer7) March 8, 2020
According to Tapology.com UFC 229 had the most PPV buys at 2.4 million. If this rumour is in fact true, then UFC 248 just blew that record out of the water all because of Weili Zhang and her supporters from China. We can be sure that Dane White has a big grin on his face after seeing these numbers and realizing the worldwide superstar he has on his roster.
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