Conor McGregor has been mocked by Kamaru Usman for being choked out in three weight classes after the Dubliner's boast about his wins in those divisions.
The Notorious, who has become UFC world champion at featherweight and lightweight, is currently preparing for a return to the octagon later this year. And he confirmed to Mirror Fighting yesterday that he would be making that return at welterweight, where Usman is the current champion.
And McGregor is angling for a world title fight at a third weight, which would be a record-breaking feat after already becoming the first two-division world champion to hold belts simultaneously, reports The Mirror.
However, to do that he would need to get past the seemingly unbeatable Usman, whose sole loss was in his second MMA fight in 2013.
McGregor tweeted yesterday: "3 weights. 3 KO’s. Moving up. The one and only one to ever do it." But his impressive set of victories, which he completed in January 2020 with a head-kick knockout of Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone irked Usman, who hit back with a stat of his own.
Welterweight champion Usman took to Twitter in response, sharing a collage of photos which show McGregor's submission losses to Nate Diaz, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Joseph Duffy. The claim was that the Irishman has submission losses at all three weights as well, with Usman captioning the photo: "I’ll just leave this here."
However, Usman's claim is false, with McGregor's loss against Duffy back at Cage Warriors 39 in Cork coming in the lightweight division. Both men weighed in at 155lb that night, which signalled McGregor's second career loss and the last he would suffer for over six years.
McGregor did lose at featherweight in his third professional fight, however. He faced Artemij Sitenkov back in his days on the Irish regional scene, where he was submitted in the first round with a kneebar.
But the former two-weight world champion getting a shot at the world title at welterweight, may be fanciful whether Usman is correct about his statistic or not. He has lost his last two outings at a lower weight, and is 1-3 in his last four fights since winning the lightweight title in 2016.
Usman is also all but locked in for a title fight with Leon Edwards, who is a member of McGregor's management stable Paradigm Sports. The Brit has been promised a world title opportunity since his win over Nate Diaz last year, but was made a public offer by Dana White last month during UFC London fight week.
There are also a number of high-ranking contenders in the division already, such as Gilbert Burns and super-prospect Khamzat Chimaev, who fight this weekend at UFC 273.
McGregor's last win did come at welterweight, but it was in January of 2020, and he lost twice last year in a rematch and later trilogy bout against Dustin Poirier. He was stopped on both occasions, breaking his leg brutally at UFC 264 in their second fight of the year.
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