What do we make of the Conor McGregor retirement fiasco?

Are the cracks finally showing?

Is this retirement talk the result of Dana White and Conor McGregor not seeing eye to eye?

A rumour that a rift has been brewing between the UFC brass and Conor McGregor has been circulating the internet ever since it was announced that he was not content to just roost at Featherweight, but actively seeked a challenge in heavier weightclasses as well.

And despite both Dana White and Conor McGregor coming forward to allay the murmurs, arriving fashionably late to the then UFC 197 Tickets on Sale press conference against Rafael Dos Anjos or openly deprecating the UFC’s poster department seemed to imply that all was indeed not smooth sailing behind the scenes.

Although those rumours were pushed to the back-burner during the rollicking build to his first fight with Nate Diaz, this latest retirement bombshell that Conor McGregor has dropped has stoked those dying embers once again, suggesting that perhaps the inevitable has only been delayed.

While the UFC and Conor Mcgregor purportedly found middle ground to make the Nate Diaz fight happen, it would seem that the cracks that were touted to have appeared between the two parties were very real, and that UFC 196 may have only served to plaster over them after all.