White: Relinquishing of featherweight title was 'Conor's decision'

There appears to be a disagreement over how Conor McGregor's featherweight title run came to an end.

Addressing comments made by McGregor's coach John Kavanagh in regards to the UFC stripping his fighter of one of his two championship belts, company president Dana White told Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports that it was McGregor's call to vacate.

"(Kavanagh is) misinformed," White said. "Yeah, he doesn't know all that has gone on, I guess. Do you think I just did this? This was Conor’s decision."

By White's account, McGregor freeing up the belt was the first domino in a sequence of events that has resulted in interim champion Jose Aldo being elevated back to his former position as the undisputed king at 145 pounds, and top contenders Max Holloway and Anthony Pettis battling for a new interim title in the main event of UFC 206 on Dec. 10.

The convenient timing of McGregor's decision gives the rest of the featherweight division a clear-cut goal to achieve after McGregor went a year without a title defense. "The Notorious" fought in a pair of welterweight bouts opposite Nate Diaz instead, before defeating Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight championship at UFC 205.

"Look, I let Conor fight Diaz and then I let him fight Diaz again," White said. "Then there was the whole 155-pound thing I let him do. But at the end of the day, him doing that tied up the division for a year. There's a logjam there and a lot of guys were (angry).

"This was my way to fix the logjam. I wanted Aldo to fight Holloway for the belt, but he needed more time. So I looked at it and I said, well, it makes sense to make Aldo the champion and then have Holloway and Pettis fight for the interim title, and when Jose's ready, barring any crazy injuries, the winner can fight him."

McGregor is expected to be out of action until May as he prepares for the birth of his first child. He has made no indication of who he plans to face next when he returns.