Conor McGregor has been warned that he may have to wait even longer for a welterweight title opportunity after Leon Edwards' upset victory over Kamaru Usman in August.
The Irishman has already been featherweight and lightweight champion simultaneously in the UFC, becoming the first fighter ever to complete such an accomplishment. But he has set his sights on further history by targeting the welterweight title and former champion Kamaru Usman when he returns to action next year.
However, legendary former title contender Chael Sonnen believes that Usman losing the title to Edwards at UFC 278 in a shock defeat has cost McGregor that opportunity. Heading into the fight, Usman was seemingly unbeatable and with a win would have beaten three of his top ten contenders on two separate occasions each.
But now the division has opened up again, meaning there is less ability to justify McGregor being handed an opportunity at the belt on the back of two losses. "I think that we can eliminate the title talk," Sonnen said during a video on his YouTube channel. "I know that was real.
"But it turns out that Leon is under the Paradigm management company. So essentially, Conor and Leon are teammates. Leon and Conor matchup very well. But Conor and Kamaru don't match up very well, Conor and Chimaev don't match up very well, so if we eliminate title talks all of a sudden you start to have some very interesting match-ups.
"That's not to mention you could just bring a 155lb fighter up. Nobody is off limits; Dustin Poirier has been wanting to go up to 170lb, Chandler is willing to bump up to 170lb, we can play this game, we don't have to, but Justin Gaethje would also go up to 170lb. So it starts to get really interesting for the 'what could be' when you look at what might happen."
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McGregor has confirmed on multiple occasions that he will be returning to action at welterweight after bulking up considerably during his time away from the octagon over the last year. He was most recently stopped twice in a row by Poirier, the second of which saw him suffer a gnarly broken leg that is still not fully healed in such a way that he can fight.
He has been upping the intensity in training lately, but also travelled to the Dominican Republic to shoot his first Hollywood movie with Jake Gyllenhaal. The pair are filming a remake of the classic film Road House, with the Irishman set to play a new character in his first major film.
It is believed that McGregor will finally return to action next year, at which point he will have been out of action for almost two years due to his injury. He has claimed that it is, however a "distant memory" and promised fans in a recent Twitter Q&A session that his "leg is now a lethal weapon."
