Conor McGregor

By FCF Staff

After Conor McGregor’s sudden retirement announcement, and the news he’s been pulled from UFC 200, Chael Sonnen is arguing that the Irish star has made a big mistake.

Yesterday McGregor turned heads by tweeting out that he’s decided to “retire young”. Not long after, Dana White told SportsCenter that the fighter will no longer fight Nate Diaz at UFC 200, because, according to White, McGregor refused to travel to Las Vegas for contractually obligated, promotional appearances.

Sonnen held Facebook chat on Tuesday, and the former middleweight contender speculated that these developments have taken place, because McGregor has attempted to renegotiate his contract (quote via MMA Fighting.com):

“He might really be done…I don’t know if he wants to be done. This was a negotiation tool. But he called the bluff of the wrong guys. These are gamblers man, there’s rules in Vegas. If you say bet you have a bet. I mean that. You go to a casino, you don’t put your money down, you tell the pit boss ‘I want that bet’ if he yells the word bet you have a bet. And it goes both ways. If you win it he’ll pay you…Anytime you go into a negotiation and you call someone’s bluff, man you better mean it because this this is what can happen.”

“When you get beat up by a guy, and then you agree to fight him again, and then you pull out, it really doesn’t matter after that,” Sonnen furthered. “And the miscalculation here by Conor is he’s not gonna be telling his side. He’s gonna be telling his side to whoever.com. He’s not gonna be telling it on FS1 or ESPN or anywhere else. Those days are gone. This was a big mistake.”

McGregor hasn’t made any additional, public comments since his initial retirement tweet.