- Charles Oliveira and Rafael dos Anjos vowed to move on and not to call out Conor McGregor again
- The Brazilians both think “The Notorious” has been ducking them
Brazilian UFC stars Charles Oliveira and Rafael dos Anjos are no longer putting Conor McGregor on top of their priority list after concluding that the former UFC two-division champ has been cherry-picking his fights.
No more call outs
In a fan Q&A during UFC 283 fight week, Oliveira expressed his disappointment on McGregor’s lack of reaction to his numerous call outs. For “do Bronx,” it’s easy to see that “The Notorious” has been ducking him and while he still knows how massive a fight with McGregor is, Oliveira said he’ll stop saying the Irishman’s name for now.
“There are no fools here, everybody knows we want this fight because he’ll give us a lot of money, but I do think he’s a guy that needs to be hyped,” Oliveira said (h/t MMA Fighting). “I’ve asked for this fight plenty of times and he never says anything. I’ll be ready to fight him the day he wants, but I won’t call him out anymore.”
“McGregor chickened out a long time ago,” Oliveira added.
It can be recalled that Oliveira has long been yearning for a money fight with McGregor. In fact, the former lightweight champion even admitted that he only agreed to fight Islam Makhachev in the hopes of possibly gaining leverage over the discussion with the UFC for his request to fight McGregor this year.
RDA feels the same way
Much like Oliveira, Dos Anjos has also been name-dropping McGregor whenever he gets the chance to. It can be recalled that RDA was supposed to face McGregor for the lightweight title in 2016 but was an injury saw him being replaced by Nate Diaz.
Dos Anjos feels that it’s about time to pick up where they left off and make the fight happen, specifically in July. However, RDA thinks “The Notorious” is also avoiding him just like what he’s doing with Oliveira.
“Conor picks his fights,” Dos Anjos claimed. “Like Charles said, everybody wants this fight because it will be lucrative. He picks his fights. When he feels that’s the fight for him, he’ll choose it. We’ll be waiting but we’ll continue fighting in the meantime.”
Oliveira then agreed to his compatriot and concluded:
“Like Rafael said, he handpicks his fights. I think he looks at the guy and thinks ‘I can beat this one,’ and then he signs the contract. He’s right not to fight me because he knows what will happen.”
McGregor is still yet to make any major progress in his long-awaited UFC return. He last fought at UFC 264 against Dustin Poirier where he suffered a gruesome leg injury.
On the other hand, Oliveira is planning to make an epic UFC comeback in April following his devastating title fight defeat to Islam Makhachev at UFC 280. Dos Anjos, meanwhile, is looking to score another huge win after submitting Bryan Barberena this past December.
