Conor McGregor lost a bet at UFC 334 and decided Terrance McKinney was to blame. McKinney came in 4.2 pounds heavy for his lightweight fight with Jim Miller, then put Miller away quickly on the prelims at Madison Square Garden. That was enough for McGregor to fire off four posts on X, including one that called McKinney “Scum in fact.”
The wager, according to Bloody Elbow, was a $200,000 treble on three fighters to pull off upsets in New York. It would have paid $6 million, which works out to roughly 30-to-1 on the combined ticket. Miller was the first leg. The slip was dead before the main card even started.
McGregor, 38, started mild with “Damn” and “Unlucky Jim.” Then he went after the scale. “Terrible behaviour to miss weight like that against a legend,” he wrote, before adding a crack about a UAE jail and throwing away the key. He also had a promise about his money: “I’ll get that money back and karma will get fat tits. Fact.” His last word went to the guy who actually took the punches: “Awesome career Jim! Bravo.”
The UFC’s Paramount+ account posted the finish with the caption “ANOTHER 1ST ROUND FINISH FOR TERRANCE MCKINNEY,” and the promotion clearly enjoyed the highlight more than the Irishman did. McKinney, 32, didn’t pretend the weigh-in went fine. He owned it in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan. “I wanna apologize for missing weight,” he said, and then he told Rogan, “This is my last fight at 155.” His next fight will be at 170 pounds, and he had a message for his new neighbors: “Welterweight division, look the f out.”
That move is the right call. A 4.2-pound miss means a fighter’s body is telling him something, and the division where he no longer has to drain himself is usually where his cardio comes back. For a guy who apparently does his best work in the first round anyway, being fresher at 170 could make him more dangerous, not less.
Now the take. McGregor has a fair point about the weight miss. Miller deserved an opponent who made the agreed limit, and McKinney’s apology suggests he knows it. But I’ve ripped up enough betting slips to know you don’t get to blame the scale for a pick. A treble of underdogs is a lot closer to my religion than the 12-favorite parlays clogging up everybody’s feed, so I’ll give him a little credit for style. Still, a 30-to-1 ticket loses most of the time, and that’s why it pays 30-to-1. McKinney was the favorite because people expected him to do exactly what he did, and Miller getting caught early on the prelims was always the most likely outcome on leg one. The karma McGregor is counting on doesn’t cash at any window I know of, and his next chance to win that money back is whatever card he picks to bet next.
