The UFC is “incredibly” disappointed with lightweight fighter Conor McGregor said Lawrence Epstein, COO of the sporting body.
“We’ve come so far in legitimizing the sport and growing our business,” the exec told Cheddar in an in interview Friday. “[His behavior] is just not representative of who we are.”
McGregor was arrested Thursday for an altercation in Brooklyn where he attacked a bus full of fellow UFC fighters, injuring two of them.
“The first thing that’s got to happen is a criminal investigation,” Epstein said. Once that is over, the UFC will decide what to do internally and the option of kicking the fighter out of the UFC is not off the table, he said.
McGregor is known for his flamboyant and provocative antics. For example, he swiped Floyd Mayweather Jr. with racist and demeaning slurs ahead of their highly anticipated UFC-boxing crossover match last year.
The league, which celebrated its 25th anniversary Friday, hosts UFC 223 Saturday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Since its inception, it’s [evolved](https://cheddar.com/videos/how-the-ufc-has-changed-over-its-25-year-history) from being a “very spectacle-oriented, niche, U.S.-centric sport to...a truly global brand,” said Epstein.
He added that the body has worked very hard at making it a safe and regulated space with no tolerance for fighters like McGregor.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/cheddar-steps-into-the-octagon-with-ufc).
Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini joined Cheddar's Kristen Scholer to discuss plans for the future even as COVID-19 upended Barstool's sponsorship of the Arizona Bowl featuring the Boise State Broncos and the Central Michigan Chippewas due to the spreading omicron variant. "In our case as a company, coronavirus has been a big boom for us," she noted. "We've been able to create a lot of new programming, launch a lot of different personalities, and frankly take share from traditional media, and that's what we've done the entire pandemic." While she admitted to taking a hit on the canceled Bowl game, live events aren't completely off the table for Barstool in 2022. Nardini also talked about potential sports betting expansion following its partnership with Penn National Gaming.
Five women have been named to the U.S. short-track speedskating team for the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Among those five, there was only one returning Olympian of the group, Maame Biney, who competed in the 2018 Olympics as the first African-American woman to ever qualify for the U.S. short-track speedskating team. JD sat down with Biney to discuss how she's preparing for the games.
Eric Mitchell, Sports Analyst and President & CEO of LifeFlip Media, breaks down the updated rules around testing in the NFL and outlines how vaccinated players are impacted by new return-to-play guidelines.
Carlo and Baker kick off the weirdest week of the year with all the news you missed over the holiday weekend, including calls for the CDC to shorten its isolation window as Omicron sweeps through the country.
The 2022 Winter Olympics will be without some of hockey's biggest players. The NHL and the NHL Player's Association have agreed to not participate in the men's hockey tournament at the Games in Beijing next year. The league has been forced to postpone some games because of a rise in COVID-19 cases among players. Washington Post sports reporter Samantha Pell joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss what this could mean for the Winter Olympics and the sport of hockey.
Former professional tennis player Patrick McEnroe joined Cheddar to discuss the troubling issues surrounding player Peng Shuai who appeared potentially to have been silenced following her social media post accusing former Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault. Shuai's subsequent disappearance, reappearance, and apparent retraction of the accusation in an interview only added to worries. "When this happened, all of us in the tennis community were very concerned. And, by the way, another thing Peng said in this interview was that she doesn't speak very good English," McEnroe noted. "Well I can assure you, she speaks darn good English, 'cause I spoke to her on many occasions over the last 15 years."
Carlo and Baker cover the heartening news on the Covid front ahead of the holiday, plus President Biden punting student loan repayments again, a new space telescope and Love, Hate, Ate: Christmas Eve Eve Edition!
The boys discuss President Biden's plans to send out free rapid tests as the testing supply chain starts to buckle ahead of the holidays. Also, why aren't Americans having more babies, and The Matrix returns.
