CONOR McGREGOR AND Jose Aldo began an unprecedented media tour on Friday to promote their UFC 189 bout, and tensions are already running high.
The pair are in Las Vegas today, where they’ll clash on 11 July when Aldo’s UFC featherweight world title will be on the line.
Their 12-day media tour, which endS in Dublin a week tomorrow, started in Aldo’s native Brazil, and it appears that McGregor has already got the champion riled up.
UFC president Dana White has the unenviable task of keeping the two rivals apart during their staredowns on the tour, and Aldo’s coach Andre Pederneiras has issued him with a warning.
“Andre Pederneiras told me — he’s not joking, he’s dead serious — that I better make sure that Conor McGregor does not touch Jose Aldo once during this entire tour,” White told FOX Sports 1’s UFC Fight Night 62 post-fight show over the weekend.
“The level of disrespect that’s coming out of (McGregor’s) mouth will not be followed by the level of disrespect by him being touched.
“I better sleep, eat my Wheaties and be ready on this trip to keep these two from touching each other, which I’m very conscious of. It’s going to be fun, it’s going to be interesting and I can’t wait for that fight. It’s going to be the biggest featherweight fight ever.”
An indication of how big this fight looks set to be is that the UFC are even producing a series of their ‘Embedded’ programmes — normally the preserve of pay-per-view fight weeks — for the duration of the UFC 189 media tour.
You can watch the first episode below. It features a fired-up Dubliner whispering sweet nothings to Aldo in Portuguese, as well as footage of McGregor in a packed Irish pub in Rio called Shenanigan’s — what else? — throwing darts at a picture of the champion, before removing his shirt and trying to eat said picture.
Standard McGregor behaviour, really.
