As I said, it has only been 80 days since Dustin turned Conor's lights off. Conor's first reply indicated that he was planning to fulfill the pledge but requested more information. Dustin replied saying he wasn't getting an answer. This could have been a simple miscommunication that has now destroyed the relationship. In an actual professional world, you would never do this as it would have a damaging impact on the charity and people would be hesitant to pledge / donate in the future. My theory is this is just fight hype bullshit.
You see it as he will not donate because he lost the fight. Maybe? I guess we will never know. If Conor thought he was getting out of the donation then I don't see why he would have scheduled a rematch as it was obvious to come up.
I don't know that he wouldn't donate per se. My theory is that he can't beat Dustin in the ring but he loves the fact that he's richer than Dustin so when those texts come in he says "let him sweat a little" and ignores them on purpose. I don't see that as honourable.
I don't believe he's trying to conduct due diligence over the course of 80 days. Khabib and Dana did it in under 10 days. I understand it's more money but I don't believe for a second that the hold up has anything whatsoever to do with due diligence. I think it's just Conor being Conor and flexing what power he has left where he can on a man he feels like a sucker rushing to pay. All due to ego.
I don't know that he would refuse to pay him but I don't doubt he'd make him work and jump through unreasonable hoops to assert his dominance over Dustin the best way he can. I also don't believe for a second he was going to conduct said due diligence and pay out before the next fight. I believe he'd use his alleged due diligence process as fodder for his press conferences to call Dustin's charity bush league and otherwise embarrass him.
We don't know how many attempts, and of what nature they were, that Dustin made to get Conor's team engaged. But given the sum of money, we can assume he's made as many reasonable attempts to get the process going as he felt he could before hitting frustration and realizing he's being played.
I admit I don't have evidence for all of this but given what I've seen of how Conor deals with loss and how he deals with his ego I can't imagine it going any other way. I'd be shocked if Conor didn't literally say some variation of "let him sweat a little", playing his games. It certainly hasn't been 80 days of due diligence - it's entirely possible this due diligence process hasn't even begun, 80 days out, and Conor is just putting him on ice.
I'm really glad that is backfiring for him and most MMA fans find it despicable. I just can't wait for Dustin to get his chance to KO him again. Hope he fights calm and smart and doesn't get angry and overstep and let Conor get that puncher's chance. We know conor doesn't like him shelling up, leg kicking, and grappling so I hope that's what his strategy is built around in the rematch.
