Connor McGregor's Retirement: Fraud or for Real?

          On Tuesday, April 19^th, Connor McGregor announced in a tweet that he had plans to “retire early,” reports Fox Sports.   Connor has claimed a championship belt in the featherweight class of the UFC.  His plans were to move up to lightweight, fight Aldo, and claim the belt in a second weight class.  However, a couple weeks prior to the fight, his opponent was reported to have a broken foot and would not be able to fight in the championship bout.  The UFC hurried to find a fill in for Aldo, leaving them with the infamous fighter, Nate Diaz.  Diaz took on the fight with 11 day notice and proceeded to cause Connors first loss by a rear-naked choke.  Connor released a post-fight statement saying that he would return to defend his featherweight belt in his next fight, but it soon surfaced that there would be a rematch for the lightweight belt, scheduled for July 9, 2016.  This rematch caused a big uproar in the UFC world.  Connor sent out a tweet promoting his idea of early retirement, but it was not taken very seriously by the “big shots”.  Some say that the idea was brought on by his associates as a publicity stunt, others believe it had something to do with Connor’s witnessing the fight that lead to the death of a fellow MMA fighter.  He released a tweet saying that he would put out his statement soon, and that was the end of the fiasco. 

-Allie Pertee