Conor McGregor’s three-word message suggests future lies away from UFC

Conor McGregor has dropped a huge hint his future lies away from UFC after delivering a teasing three-word statement on social media.

The Irishman, 32, is set to meet Dustin Poirier for their trilogy bout in July, but his ambitions in the organisation beyond that are as yet unclear.

With a rematch against Khabib Nurmagomedov off the table, there is little left for McGregor to achieve in the sport.

He has now got several business ventures to his name, including his McGregor Fast training programme and clothing line.

And the latest item on sale are specially crafted MMA fight gloves, designed by McGregor and his team, which he posted a picture of on his Twitter account on Thursday, followed by his cryptic message.

Responding to a fan's comment asking why the gloves are not used in the sport, McGregor replied: "Let’s talk,@ufc. Happy to discuss our patented @McGregorFast fighting gloves prototype with you."

One fan pointed out that tying his gloves to the franchise exclusively would stop McGregor selling his gloves elsewhere, like boxing and MMA trainer Trevor Wittman has done with his own line, ONX.

"But Trevor Wittman has never fought MMA tho?" McGregor wrote. "You need guys with real experience. Case in point the king of this s***. Me. And F*** other organisations. I’m with the UFC."

It took just a couple of minutes for McGregor to retract his fiercely loyal statement though, posting quickly afterwards: "For now anyway."

His comments open up the prospect of McGregor moving on to a fresh challenge in the near future amid heightened talk of him stepping between the ropes to fight Jake Paul in the boxing ring.

McGregor has already successfully crossed over to boxing once for a lucrative payday in his 2017 defeat to Floyd Mayweather.

YouTube star Paul now appears to be on an upward trajectory towards bigger and better fights after comfortably dispatching of ex-UFC star Ben Askren inside the first round on Saturday.

The victory for Paul in Atlanta now means his professional record stands at three wins from a possible three, all by way of knockout.

Speaking after the bout, Paul claimed the chances of him facing McGregor are now "more realistic".

He told MMA Junkie: "There's a lot of people. But honestly when it comes down to signing the contract, these guys duck.

"The [Conor] McGregor fight just became more realistic – like I've been saying.

"I just wanna do big fights. I'm only going to do big fights. I want to challenge myself though at the same time.

"So, we'll see who the next big challenge is. I don't want to take some bulls***. I wanna challenge myself and I wanna do 3 million-4 million pay-per-view buys.

"So, who is gonna bring in those numbers?"

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