McGregor's decision to call time on his career came less than 12 hours before the UFC announced that he'd been pulled from UFC 200, where he was due to have a rematch with Ultimate Fighter season five winner and MMA bad boy Nate Diaz.

Shortly after the announcement of McGregor's withdrawal was made, UFC president Dana White revealed the organisation decided to axe the Dubliner from the landmark event because he refused to travel to Las Vegas to fulfil his promotional obligations for the card.

McGregor's hiatus, which sent reverberations across the MMA world, turned out to be a short one as he performed a stunning u-turn 48 hours after saying that he'd walked away from the world's fastest growing sport.

The UFC's featherweight champion, 19-3, claimed that he'd briefly retired because he felt that travelling to Sin City would impact on his training camp, which at the time was taking part in the Mjolnir gym in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Many of McGregor's detractors didn't buy his excuse for retiring and branded it an attention-seeking stunt.

But according to Nelson, 'The Notorious' did quit MMA because he wanted more time to train for his rematch with Diaz - who is so far the only man to defeat him inside the Octagon.

"I think he retired because he was getting tired of all the media stuff," the Icelander told Starsport.

"He felt like he needed more time to training and needed more time for himself to train for this next fight.

"And, I think that's a very mature thought because obviously he lost the last one and he wants to be properly prepared for this one.

"And, he wants to focus on himself and the training, not the whole media.

"At the end of the day, you're there to win fights."

(dailystar.co.uk)