Earlier this month, Conor McGregor announced he would be taking some time off as his girlfriend is pregnant with their first child. "I'm going to be a daddy early next year," McGregor said during the UFC 205 post-fight press conference. "I'm just going to have this baby, take a little bit of time, and see the way I feel after that."
On the UFC Unfiltered podcast with Jim Norton and Matt Serra, UFC president Dana White said that "a little time off" actually means almost a year.
While White was discussing the UFC's relinquishment of McGregor's featherweight title, White said:
"That [featherweight] belt hadn't been defended in almost a year, and Conor's taking another 10 months off for maternity. It's not fair to the rest of the guys in that division. You can't tie up the entire division, but I did let him fight for [two titles]. I let him do it."
Although it's been known for some time that McGregor would take time off for the baby, it wasn't previously known that we wouldn't be seeing more of him until September 2017. Said White in November:
"His girl [Dee Devlin] gets super stressed out when he fights. He doesn't want her having any of that stress while she's pregnant. He's good. He should take time off. He's been fighting nonstop. Nothing wrong with him taking time off. It's good for him and her, and it's good for the baby."
