Diesel: McGregor left xXx to ‘get his manhood back’

Diesel says that he wanted McGregor for xXx: The return of Xander Cage, based on his “English” accent. McGregor left the project to concentrate on his rematch with Nate Diaz.

I wanted to have an English accent in the movie. I had created a role for Conor McGregor and after he lost to Nate Diaz, he had to go to a dark place, he had to go get his manhood back to fight the second time, so he wasn’t able to do this film at the time…I wanted this English accent to be speckled in the movie. But I also wanted someone that could do fight sequences. A lot of the UFC guys do great fight sequences in movies. You saw when I put Gina Carano in 6, and Ronda Rousey in 7. I had great experiences when putting UFC fighters in the movie, so I wanted someone that had that English accent, they talk like this, and I got Michael Bisping to come and do that.