I agree it's not as black and white as that. Just away from the fight itself, what was going on outside in the lead up sounded mental. I don't know what the number was of fans from Ireland that went over, but if he pulled that would have messed things up financially for the UFC, Conor and fans who paid to go over to the fight - I'm pretty sure fans can get a refund if the main event is cancelled
I think it was on BT Sport when he done an interview on the question of Aldo pulling out where he brought up that Vegas would have lost $60 million in revenue, UFC would lose $20 million for production alone for the event, the gate would have most likely not being a high as it was and Conor would've lost out on his pay day.
Then having him fly to New York the week of the fight for the Reebok launch, then LA to do a chat show before getting back to Vegas. I'm sure he did that interview with Sonnen at ESPN HQ as well the week of the fight and Sonnen is telling everyone he's cutting nearly 30lbs the week of the fight - as well as Tweeting Mendes' number in public. He was probably under a lot of pressure outside the cage more than the fight itself. I think something happened there where maybe Conor realised Dana will work you to the bone doing PR or he did the UFC a solid by not pulling out of the fight early on when he hurt his knee during the world tour and expected maybe a better contract, the promise of the stadium fight or who knows.
Either way, it was a risk/reward scenario that paid off in the end. He probably did, foolishly, plan to fight himself and not under UFC pressure. Aside from Werdum saying he would have threw water at Conor's face if he was Dos Anjos, I could get why Conor would say what he did during his acceptance speech.