Morning Report: Brendan Schaub calls Conor McGregor the UFC’s ‘pink elephant in a circus full of grey’

Brendan Schaub is starting to open up on Dana White.

Yesterday, the former UFC heavyweight went on Colin Cowherd’s The Herd on Fox Sports 1 with his podcasting partner Bryan Callen to promote their very successful podcast The Fighter and the Kid. While there, the topic of Schaub’s tenure as a professional MMA practitioner came up and Cowherd asked Schaub about his departure from the sport and UFC President Dana White.

“We don’t see eye to eye. I respect the guy. People think I hate him, I don’t hate him. He has a tough job but I’m coming from a fighter’s viewpoint. I feel like he’s the warden from Shawshank Redemption. I Andy Dufresne’d myself out of that pile and [Bryan Callen] is my Morgan Freeman. We’re in Mexico right now baby!”

For those who have somehow never seen The Shawshank Redemption despite its permanent fixture on every cable channel, the warden of Shawshank prison is the film’s main villain, a man reviled by the audience who eventually shoots himself in the head in the film’s triumphant conclusion. It’s no wonder people think Schaub hates White.

White and Schaub’s disagreements stem from the much maligned UFC-Reebok deal, which forced Schaub to retire due to his drastic reduction in income when he was forced to part ways with his sponsors against his will. Instead, of accepting what he believed was compensation far below his value, Schaub opted to retire and pursue other endeavors, namely his successful podcast with Callen.

While Schaub has kept from being too vocal in his dissatisfaction with some aspects of the UFC he did previously come out in favor of Conor McGregor when the UFC pulled McGregor off the UFC 200 card. Cowherd once again brought up the topic and where Schaub sided and Schaub reiterated his position that McGregor deserves special concessions.

“I’m always [on the side of the] fighter. I’m always fighter first and I voice that opinion which sometimes gets me in trouble but as long as you’re true to yourself you’re gonna be alright. So with Conor, we’ve never had a Conor. Conor’s talking about fighting Floyd Mayweather for $50 million. Go find another guy who could do that. We don’t have him.

“He’s our pink elephant in a circus full of grey elephants. He’s the pink elephant. You’re gonna be able to make some adjustments to that guy. Now I understand he had obligations with the press conference and stuff like that – Conor sends out a tweet when he retired, was bigger than Kobe Bryant’s retirement tweet. What are we talking about?!”

Schaub’s point is one that was brought up in the immediate wake of the McGregor decision. McGregor’s retirement tweet was one of the biggest sports stories of the year, and at the time, was the most retweeted post by any athlete in 2016, shattering the record held by Kobe Bryant’s retirement tweet. Many have argued that that amount of interest far exceeds any promotional success a media tour by McGregor could garner. It appears Schaub agrees, though he doesn’t explain who McGregor is in his Shawkshank metaphor – perhaps …

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