RDA: Conor McGregor is ‘out of his mind’

The war of words has begun ahead of Conor McGregor and Rafael dos Anjos’ UFC 197 scrap for the lightweight title. While McGregor sent the first verbal jabs in his official fight announcement on Facebook, dos Anjos has fired back in a recent interview.

The lightweight champ spoke to MMAFighting to discuss why the lightweight division is very different from what McGregor is used to, and why he believes McGregor moving up to lightweight is actually a smart decision.

“Lightweight division is a different story. We’ll see. Everybody talks. Anthony Pettis talked before the fight. Donald Cerrone talked before the fight. See what happened? I’ll let him talk and we’ll see what happens. I hope he’s training hard. I think he’s going to be scared once I hit him.”

“He doesn’t have anything to lose,” said Dos Anjos. “He’s a smart guy. He knows that if he loses to [featherweight contenders] Jose Aldo or Frankie Edgar, he doesn’t have anything. But at lightweight, if he wins, he’s the man. If he loses, he still has his belt.

One thing that particularly left RDA scratching his head was McGregor’s comment about him being a traitor to Brazil…

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Dos Anjos said of McGregor’s comments. “We have a lot of Brazilians in the United States. It doesn’t mean we’re traitors to our country. I’ve got kids and I had to move for different things like better wrestling training partners here. I think that was a frustrated way to try to win the Brazilian fans. This guy is out of his mind. He’s going to try to do his best to try to mess with my head. I don’t hate him, but the Brazilians do. Brazil is on my side.”