In June, Conor McGregor announced his retirement from mixed martial arts and hadn't been too keen on the matchups presented to him by UFC president Dana White.
On Friday, the former two-division world champion took to Twitter to reveal what he had in mind for his fight season and possible future plans. McGregor sent out a series of screenshots from his conversations with White that occurred a short time after his 40-second knockout of Donald Cerrone at UFC 246 in January. Initially, McGregor had two fights in mind, with UFC veteran Diego Sanchez in his native Ireland being the icing on the cake. White scoffed at the idea of Sanchez. McGregor countered with current interim lightweight champion Justin Gaethje , but the Irishman didn't want to wait that long to return to action.
Reports surfaced earlier this year of McGregor being a replacement fighter if either lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov or Tony Ferguson, scheduled for UFC 249 on April 18, dropped out. COVID-19 shut the door on the highly anticipated fight as Nurmagomedov had gone back to Russia to be with his family. But McGregor ended the thought of being a fill-in and had wanted to set his own schedule and even proposed a massive card in Los Angeles.
To end his series of tweets, McGregor announced the next time he'd compete would be against Manny Pacquiao in the Middle East. No details were revealed, but it's been brought up by both fighters ahead of McGregor's bout with Cerrone. It would be the second time McGregor has boxed, losing to Floyd Mayweather by 10th-round TKO in August 2017.