UFC President Dana White Reacts to Conor McGregor's Retirement Announcement

Former UFC champion Conor McGregor took to social media on Saturday night and, for the third time in four years, announced his retirement from mixed martial arts. McGregor wrote, "Hey guys I've decided to retire from fighting," McGregor tweeted. "Thank you all for the amazing memories! What a ride it's been! Here is a picture of myself and my mother in Las Vegas post one of my World title wins! Pick the home of your dreams Mags I love you! Whatever you desire it's yours," while posting a photo of himself with his mother.

During his press conference for UFC 250, UFC president Dana White responded to McGregor's statement, as well as public complaints made by Jon Jones and Jorge Masvidal.

"One of the beautiful things about this sport is you don't have to fight," White said. "This isn't the NBA or the NFL where you better be at practice, you better show up and do this. You don't have to do anything here. And if these guys want to sit out and retire right now, or anybody feels uncomfortable in any way, shape or form of what's going on, you don't have to fight. It is all good. So if that's what Conor's feeling right now, Jon Jones, Jorge Masvidal — I feel you. It's not like I'm going, 'Holy (expletive)! This is crazy! This is nuts!' Nothing is crazy and nuts right now because everything is crazy and nuts right now. So, on a certain level, I totally understand. I get it."

McGregor spoke with ESPN's Ariel Helwani on Sunday morning, explaining that he's simply "bored" of waiting around for his next fight. He hasn't competed since January.

"The game just does not excite me, and that's that," McGregor said. "All this waiting around. There's nothing happening. I'm going through opponent options, and there's nothing really there at the minute. There's nothing that's exciting me.

"They should have just kept the ball rolling. I mean, why are they pushing [Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Justin Gaethje] back to September? You know what's going to happen in September, something else is going to happen in September, and that's not going to happen. I laid out a plan and a method that was the right move, the right methods to go with. And they always want to balk at that and not make it happen or just drag it on. Whatever I say, they want to go against it to show some kind of power. They should have just done the fight — me and Justin for the interim title — and just kept the ball rolling."