Dana White wants Conor McGregor to stick to UFC following Mayweather fight

For a guy who started out pretty hellbent against Conor McGregor boxing Floyd Mayweather, Dana White sure did come around in the end. Not only did White invest a ridiculous amount of his time promoting the fight, he spent all fight week predicting a McGregor knockout win. That didn't end up panning out, but White is still extremely proud of Conor's performance in the ring.

Just don't ask him to sign off on any more MMA vs. boxing matches for a while.

"I'm so proud of Conor tonight," White said at the post-fight press conference. "It's not the fight I thought it would be, it was a completely different fight than I expected. When you get into professional boxing, and you guys know, you start fighting four rounds, you fight six rounds. He went ten rounds tonight with arguably the greatest to ever do it."

"I'm sure you guys probably already saw this, but if you didn't, the CompuBox numbers were in nine of Floyd Mayweather's fights where it went twelve rounds, his opponents hit him with less than 100 punches. Conor hit him with 111 in less than 10 rounds. So it was a great fight. I'm really proud of Conor."

And while he wouldn't say no to the question of McGregor boxing again, it was clear White wanted things to get back to normal.

"I would rather he did not," White said. "This isn't what he does. He's a mixed martial artist where he goes in and he fights and he uses all of his weapons. And tonight he was only allowed to use his hands. I think he did great tonight, I don't think there's anything else left to prove. I'd rather he fight in mixed martial arts. I'm ready to get back to UFC and do what I do."

That meant UFC’s president wasn't very receptive to other crossover suggestions, like UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic vs. unified boxing world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.

"I don't even want to talk about my other guys in a boxing match," he said when asked about the match up. "This was one of those ... two big superstars. This was built from the bottom up from the fans to the media and then up to us when we even started remotely considering something like this. It was just a real special event, and a rare event. I'm not looking to do this again."

"It takes two very special people and the right place and the right time to do the freakish kinds of numbers and the watercooler talk and all the things that this fight had. You have to have the right people in the right place in the right time. This s**t doesn't happen all the time."

Asked if it would be difficult getting Conor McGregor back into the world of MMA where tens of millions are made instead of hundreds, Dana laughed.

"If our fights do what the buys did here tonight and the gate, we'll all be good," he said. "Nobody will be bitching about anything."