‘Everybody should be grateful’ - Ladd compares McGregor to Rousey
The top ranked women’s bantamweight contender feels fans, fighters, and coaches bashing McGregor after UFC 264 should cut him some slack.
Conor McGregor’s UFC 264 post-fight comments, where the former two-division champion threatened to kill his opponent Dustin Poirier - along with Poirier’s wife - in their sleep, has earned the Straight Blast Gym superstar some understandable backlash. UFC commentator Paul Felder took exception to McGregor’s words, reminding the Irishman that shouting threats at your opponent as you lie prone & injured on the mat really means you’re operating at their mercy, rather than the other way around.
“Show some humility,” Felder chided. “Listen, this sport is violent. I get that. We’re supposed to beat the crap out of each other, knock each other out. But at the end of the day, it’s not about murder. It’s not about your family. Leave those things out of your mouth, or get the hell out of the octagon, I never want to see you again.”
That doesn’t mean that McGregor has been without defenders however. Even beyond the legions of his still massive fan base, there are others within the MMA community much more willing to cut the ‘Notorious’ fighter some slack. And among them is current women’s bantamweight top contender Aspen Ladd.
Ladd recently spoke to Morning Kombat (h/t Middle Easy) ahead of her upcoming UFC Vegas 32 bout against Macy Chiasson. And while she didn’t necessarily feel that McGregor’s post-fight words were well chosen, it doesn’t sound like she can find much room to criticize him either.
“I think that the only thing that I saw that he handled incorrectly was his post fight interview,” Ladd said, when asked about her opinion of the backlash McGregor has faced in the days following the UFC 264 main event. “But, he was in pain. Like, everybody’s basically crapping all over him, but he’d just broken his leg, he’d just lost a fight. He is not in a good mental place. And anybody hating on him really shouldn’t be. He’s done so much for the sport.
“It’s kinda like, I got that same question as far as—not the same, but: ‘Ronda Rousey, what’s your take on her?’ Everybody should be grateful. Sure, you might want to fight that person. You might want to do that, but these people have elevated the sport. I see nothing but, ‘Great, you did a great job. You helped all of us.’”
Ladd vs. Chiasson set for the co-main event slot on this weekend’s UFC Fight Night event, going down at the Apex facility in Las Vegas, NV, on July 24th. The card is set to be headlined by a bantamweight top-contender’s bout between former champion TJ Dillashaw and Cory Sandhagen.
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