Conor McGregor’s plan has always been simple: talk trash, knock dudes out, make serious bank. Thanks to his nighty-night left hand, the cocksure Irishman has been able to accomplish all three while simultaneously becoming a worldwide superstar.
But in the last four months, McGregor has done almost everything you could imagine to alienate his fans. The 28-year-old has ignored the UFC to flirt with everyone’s least favorite combat sports athlete: Floyd Mayweather. He has given interviews while dropping $27,000 at a Dolce & Gabbana store in Los Angeles.
It’s an arresting turn of events when you consider where McGregor was perched in November. Having torn lightweight titleholder Eddie Alvarez apart with his lethal left hand and spell-binding combinations, McGregor literally sat atop the Octagon in Madison Square Garden with a glittering UFC championship belt in each hand.
Beyond the belts, McGregor’s performance that night earned him a record purse of $3.5 million, a hefty chunk of the pay-per-view money rumored to be in the $10 million range and a place in history as the only man to hold UFC titles in two different weight classes at the same time. The titles also meant McGregor had control of a full one-quarter of the UFC’s weight divisions, and he wasn’t shy about leveraging his power to demand a piece of the $4 billion the promotion made in the sale to WME-IMG.
McGregor’s MSG moment was the culmination of a career that began in far less glittery circumstances. As the origin story of “The Notorious” goes, McGregor grew up in a typically rainy and gray suburb of Dublin with his sisters, Erin and Aoife, and working-class parents, Tony and Mags. Being sensible parents, the McGregors insisted their son pursue a reliable career, so when he graduated from high school he became a plumber’s apprentice. According to Bleacher Report, he also became a huge fan of “The Secret,” a self-help book promoted by Oprah Winfrey which says that if you faithfully visualize something, it will become a reality.
Apparently, laying pipe was not the future McGregor wanted for himself, so he quit the apprenticeship and committed to MMA. McGregor’s leap of faith was accompanied by a clear out-of-the-ring vision. He was going to be a world-famous self-made millionaire by the time he reached the age of 25. As befits “The Secret,” McGregor hunkered down and made his prediction come true. A legendarily hard worker in the gym, McGregor became obsessed with animalistic movement, extreme flexibility and learning new MMA technique. At first, he had trouble mixing them all together, posting a 4-2 record on the local Irish MMA circuit to start his career. He soon found his groove, however, and ripped off eight wins in a row, seven via knockout.
McGregor’s dominance and pleasing style — which is part Bruce Lee and part Mike Tyson — endeared him to local Irish fans. When the UFC came calling in 2013, he had a built-in fan base that both he and the fight promotion nourished in big and small ways. McGregor, for example, likes walking to the ring draped in the Irish flag and has used Sinead O’Connor’s version of a nearly 200-year-old Irish ballad as his walk-in music.
The UFC watched McGregor knockout out Marcus Brimage 64 seconds into his debut and then staged his second fight in Boston. That fight, in 2013, turned out to be a great three-round war with current No. 1 featherweight contender Max Holloway, which McGregor won via decision. Building on McGregor’s momentum, the UFC perfectly teed up his coming-out party by having the Dubliner headline an event in Ireland. The 9,500 tickets for the show sold out in a couple of hours, and Dana White said after McGregor knocked out Brazilian hard man Diego Brandao, the decibel level in Dublin’s O2 Arena hit 103. Jet engines hit 110 decibels when a plane’s wheels lift off the ground.
Amazingly, it was only the Irish crowd and hardcore MMA fans who heard the crowd roar because the event was not shown on TV in the United States. Because of the time difference, it was only streamed online via the UFC’s $9.99-per-month proprietary service. This ended up being an unwitting bonus for McGregor. The relative invisibility of McGregor’s then-crowning glory made the Irishman a legend in the US before anyone really got a good look at him. It also further connected him to his Irish roots because his hometown could say only they were there when he became a star.
McGregor’s rise from Irish star to worldwide superstar after the Brandao fight was made possible by an eff-you fighting philosophy that differs from other UFC title holders. Unlike England’s Michael Bisping or Brazil’s Jose Aldo, champions who only take fights they expect to win, McGregor will only fight someone who has a theoretical advantage over him because he understands everyone loves when the “underdog” wins. That was the story of the Aldo fight when McGregor knocked out the previously unbeaten featherweight champion with a single punch. Most famously, it was the story of McGregor’s pair of fights with Nate Diaz.
The McGregor-Diaz series had no title implications and was contended at 170 pounds, 25 pounds above the weight limit where McGregor made his name in the UFC, because the smaller man thought he could take out his bigger foe in typically flamboyant fashion. It turns out McGregor isn’t actually strong enough to make Diaz go to sleep, but that just proves his point: He actually is fighting against the odds.
That’s the narrative McGregor built for himself as he went into his fight with Alvarez at UFC 205, and the storyline was so strong that he was only a -130 favorite. Bettors, fans, and pundits thought Alvarez had a real chance in the fight because he was bigger and stronger than McGregor, just like Diaz. That’s why McGregor’s win, though it was exactly the same as all of his other wins, was still surprising.
The Irishman’s ability to shock and awe both inside the cage and at press conferences, plus the decline of Ronda Rousey, made him the undoubted king of the UFC. The promotion and fans could not complain when he announced he would be taking some time off to start a family with his longtime partner Dee Devlin. After all, McGregor had conquered the UFC and become the biggest name in combat sports by fighting 10 times in three and a half years. Clearly, he had earned the right to take a breath and enjoy the fruits of his labor.
Unfortunately for fight fans, casual fans and McGregor’s Irish fans, their hometown favorite seems to have taken his bigger-is-better fight mandate one step too far during his time off. Instead of staying quiet and letting a lightweight challenger such as Khabib Nurmagomedov or Tony Ferguson make a name for himself, McGregor has decided he needs to box 40-year-old Mayweather, retired with a 49-0 record.
The fight makes financial sense, seeing as McGregor is set to make anywhere from $25 million to $100 million, depending on which report you read. It’s the type of payday UFC fighters have not been entitled to. In order to get there, though, McGregor has stooped to the Mayweather’s level. He’s been all flash and no substance in a ceaseless war of words with the boxer in a painfully obvious attempt to hype up a fight that is crawling toward being set up.
Unlike his UFC fights, this freak-show bout comes with equally big risks for McGregor. Mayweather is a despised figure thanks to a history of domestic violence and abhorrent treatment of women.
Mayweather also promotes his fights controversially and has an unappealing style. Unlike McGregor, Mayweather is a master at defense and feints — at avoiding punches, more than landing them — and his fights more often than not turn into extremely disappointing dance recitals like his snoozefest 2015 “super-fight” with Manny Pacquiao.
“Money” Mayweather’s fighting style is not McGregor’s biggest problem, though. Mayweather likes to use race as a good vs. evil promotional plot line. He famously took the bad guy role for his fight against Oscar De La Hoya on Cinco de Mayo in 2007 by coming to the ring wearing an oversized sparkly sombrero and trunks that looked like the green, white and red Mexican flag.
McGregor has followed in Mayweather’s footsteps, to a certain extent, with his lavish “Mack Life” brand and proud proclamations about his Irish heritage. McGregor will have to decide if wading into such waters is worth the money. The outside-the-ring actions of “The Notorious” over the past few months suggest McGregor’s greed is the heavy favorite to beat out his good sense.
While he’s never been shy, McGregor has taken things to a decidedly fan-unfriendly level since UFC 205. While cruising through his home city of Dublin in a McLaren supercar, he attacked an excited fan’s phone because the young man asked for a selfie.
He staged two high-priced meet-and-greets with his fans in the UK, then canceled one at the last moment and decided to stay in Las Vegas instead.
McGregor also gave an interview to GQ in LA during which he dropped huge money at Dolce & Gabbana, explained that his power comes from his “big ball sack” and declared his desire to see Khloe Kardashian’s “big fat ass.”
Finally, he recently announced he was opening a luxury car dealership in Dublin that specializes in million-dollar Bugattis, Bentleys, and Lamborghinis.
The fight with Mayweather — which even White, the UFC president, admits probably will happen — may be the last straw for fans whom McGregor already has pushed to the limit.