Morning Report: Kevin Lee says ‘cokehead’ Conor McGregor is ‘trying to be this gangster,’ but he’s not

You may have heard that last week, former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor allegedly attacked a bus, causing a huge ruckus ahead of UFC 223 that ended up removing three fights from the event. The event was so bad it prompted Dana White to call it the“most disgusting thing to ever happen in UFC history.” While that may be hyperbolic, most are in agreement that McGregor’s actions were entirely out of bounds. Take UFC lightweight contender Kevin Lee, for instance.

Lee has been trying to position himself for a fight with McGregor since his failed interim title bid last October, and in a pair of recent interviews, Lee went off on McGregor, saying he’s acting out because he’s not tough enough to actually fight the guys who are competing at the top of the division.

”Real recognize real,” Lee told Helen Yee. “It’s childish, it’s immature, it’s all of the above. I think Dana put it best, it’s just disgusting. He’s taking from other people’s careers too and he doesn’t even really understand what he’s doing. I think a lot of that is just frustration. I think the man knows he’s not the real champ. He knows he’s getting out-shined by all these guys and he just wants that press. he wants to prove that he’s tough, when we can see right through the bulls**t. You ain’t that tough. No matter how big you want to scream and shout, you’re just not that tough. If you were tough enough you’d sign that line and fight somebody. To show up, do all that big hoopla, you know you weren’t gonna get anything from it except some bad publicity.”

McGregor got more than bad publicity. The former champion was arrested and is currently facing multiple charges stemming from the attack. He will also likely be sued by one or more parties who were injured during the melee, not so mention how his sponsors will feel about the incident. At the end of the day, Lee says, McGregor’s “cokehead” antics were a bad choice that just don’t make any sense.

“I think you have to blame the media for blowing the dude’s head up and him feeling that his s*** don’t stink and all this,” Lee told MMAWeekly. “I think a lot of what you see is frustration. I think he knows he ain’t been the champ for a while and he didn’t know what else to do. He’s acting like a child and it’s retarded. Ya know, I ain’t going to give that cokehead too much press.”

“I think Conor wants to be this gangster and he wants to be this thug, but he ain’t really from there, ya know. I got in this game to get away from that, to get away from having to do s*** like that. It seems he is trying to get there and then going back to where I came from. It’s backwards to me and it doesn’t really make sense. You can tell the man don’t really know what he’s doing because when you have that type of money, you ain’t supposed to throw s***. He’s supposed to be somewhere holding up a newspaper in front of a camera, ‘I ain’t nowhere near the scene, but somebody will get touched!’ That whole situation is laughable to somebody like me.”

Despite his harsh words for McGregor though, Lee says he wishes nothing but the best for “Notorious” because at the end of the day, he would like the chance to fight with him.

“It’s dangerous to start drinking that Kool-Aid. Like I said, I think the man truly knows he’s not the real champ and he doesn’t stack up well against us big three: Khabib, Tony, and me. He’s gonna lose to all three of us. Then you have the fact that the man’s not a real gangster. He might have grown up poor but they were like, working class, they ain’t really from the streets. He wants to be from the streets so bad.

“[But] I wish him nothing but the best. I hope nothing bad on the man. I wish him the best, I wish he could turn it around. I’m looking to make some money with him.”

Kevin Lee takes on Edson Barboza in the main event of UFC Atlantic City, on April 21.