Fresh off his victory at UFC Orlando on Saturday night, Rafael dos Anjos appeared on ‘The MMA Hour‘ with Ariel Helwani to discuss his callout of Conor McGregor.
Coming off an impressive second-round rear-naked choke submission over Bryan Barberena on Saturday night, RDA called out the man himself, Conor McGregor. Flashback to 2016, McGregor and dos Anjos were slated to square off with RDA’s UFC lightweight title on the line. Unfortunately, RDA suffered an injury in training. By the time he was healed and ready to go, McGregor had already moved on to back-to-back meetings with Nate Diaz.
Nearly seven years later, Rafael dos Anjos wants his fight with McGregor. Speaking with Helwani, RDA once again reiterated his desire to finally get his long-awaited matchup, questioning who else the former two-division champion would realistically fight upon returning.
“Who’s he gonna fight? Gonna fight Poirier again for the fourth time? Gonna fight Michael Chandler who will not even be in his division that he wants to fight. Looks like he’s juicing up, he’s not gonna fight at 155 anymore. He’s gonna fight at 170 and also, with all due respect to Michael Chandler, he’s been putting on great fights, but he’s been losing a lot. We’ll see man. We have a history. We were supposed to fight 200 times already, let’s go. Let’s bring the bad blood again. It will be a fun fight.”
Asked if he truly believes that Conor McGregor is taking PEDs during his time away from the Octagon, RDA gave a similar answer to the one he provided during his UFC Orlando post-fight press conference appearance.
“Why pull himself from the USADA pool? He looks jacked. He looks big. If he [isn’t] why would he remove himself from the USADA pool? That’s weird.”
Rafael dos Anjos talks Conor McGregor: Why would he remove himself from the USADA pool?#TheMMAHour pic.twitter.com/fNyRg9t5ha
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) December 5, 2022
Rafael dos Anjos Isn’t Buying Conor McGregor’s Excuses
As to whether or not RDA would take issue with facing an opponent who has allegedly been using performance-enhancing drugs, it makes no difference to the former lightweight champion. In fact, he’s more than willing to fight the Irish superstar at this very moment.
“I’ll fight him now, Ariel. Say okay, come to Las Vegas, fly out here ya know. That’s a guy that everything he’s for, I’m against. All his values are against my values. Let me put it this way, if we are in high school, that’s the type of guy I’m gonna fight in school. That’s for sure. I don’t like him and I want this fight.”
Though Conor McGregor has never admitted to taking any banned substances, he has indicated that he would take the necessary actions to fully heal from the leg break he suffered in July 2021. For many, that is close enough to an admission of guilt and RDA certainly isn’t buying that as an excuse.
“That’s total B.S. I broke my jaw in two pieces. I’ve been through a lot. All the fighters. Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman. And actually, that injury looks bad. I’m not a doctor, but I know what I’m talking about. That injury looks bad, but it’s no worse than an ACL injury. You recover from that quicker than an ACL injury. That’s bone to bone. Once that thing heals, you put a plate, you’re 100%. You just gonna do some therapy, but ACL injury is way worse than that. So that’s not an excuse.”
