Conor McGregor Affected By The Death Of A Young Teen Heading Into UFC 189
Conor McGregor (17-2) is scheduled to fight Chad Mendes (17-2) for the interim UFC featherweight championship bout at UFC 189, but will do so without his number one fan watching.
McGregor became close with a 14-year-old Irish teen battling leukemia named Brendan McGlone last month. Mcgregor explained the friendship during an interview with TSN while promoting UFC 189.
“What happened was I got a phone call from a person in the UFC, someone from the Make-A-Wish Foundation reached out to them,” McGregor said. “This kid from Ireland, he has leukemia and it was his final wish. I don’t know. They were saying, ‘This is probably his last wish and his last wish is to talk on the phone to you.’
“I rang the kid and we talked for a long, long time. I talked with his friends in the hospital, his family.”
McGregor would later explain that he had plans to visit the teen once he fought at UFC 189.
Unfortunately, McGregor will not be making that trip as the teen died July 6th. His family posted the following in their official Facebook page:
“It is with a very very heavy Heart that I have to say our little angel Brendan lost his battle tonight with Cancer and passed away peacefully.”
McGregor would go on to tell TSN that he had plans about possibly flying him out to Las Vegas following the fight.
“Today or last night he passed away and it f***ed my head up,” said McGregor. “This little kid is in Ireland and I’m telling the kid, ‘I’m going to take this belt and bring the belt to you and we’ll raise the belt.’ I would have done it. I would have flown him out to Las Vegas. They were thinking if maybe he got a little bit better we could fly him out to Vegas.
“It’s just a really sad situation. It’s heartbreaking. I’ve lost family members to cancer and it’s a horrible, horrible thing. I wish … I don’t know. It would have been nice if I could have maybe … I don’t know.”
You can check out the interview here:
UFC 189 takes place on July 11, 2015, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. This event will be shown on pay-per-view, Fox Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass.
