The world is still waiting to hear the legal ramifications of Conor McGregor’s alleged bus assault in Brooklyn before UFC 223. However, on Wednesday, “The Notorious” revealed at least part of the sporting ramifications for his unprovoked freakout.
In an Instagram post hyping the fact that he placed fourth on Forbes’ annual list of the 100 highest paid athletes, McGregor cryptically boasted he’d be higher on the list, “If I had of fought on the agreed May 12th bout in Rio De Janeiro.”
UFC 224 went down on that day in Rio and well-connected MMA journalist Ariel Helwani went on to reveal exactly what McGregor was going on about.
The scenario Helwani and McGregor describe goes something like this: Had McGregor not gone nuts before UFC 223, he would have fought Rafael dos Anjos for the interim welterweight title at UFC 224 in Rio.
The fight between dos Anjos and McGregor would have been a fascinating one on a number of levels. For starters, it would have been an opportunity for McGregor to once again make history. The Irishman is already the first man in UFC history to hold two belts at the same time, but if he’d beaten dos Anjos for the interim welterweight title, McGregor would have been the first person in UFC history to win titles in three different weight classes (featherweight, lightweight and welterweight). He also could have made the case that he’s currently the best fighter in all three divisions because the featherweight and lightweight titles were stripped due to inactivity, not because McGregor lost them.
Furthermore, the fight would have been a call back to the exact moment McGregor became a mainstream superstar. Way back in 2016, McGregor was booked to move up from the 145-pound featherweight division, where he held the championship, to challenge dos Anjos for the Brazilian’s 155-pound lightweight belt. During the lead-up to the fight, McGregor also casually mentioned that he would challenge for the 170-pound welterweight title once he had dos Anjos’ belt, but nobody believed him at the time. The boast, like much of what McGregor said, seemed absurd.
Then, just days before the fight with dos Anjos at UFC 196, the Brazilian pulled out because of an injury. Nate Diaz, of all people, stepped in on less than two weeks notice to take the fight with McGregor, which ultimately was contested in the 170-pound welterweight division.
In that first fight, Diaz towered over the much smaller McGregor, and the man from Stockton shocked the world by winning via rear naked choke. McGregor, however, became a legend by being conciliatory in defeat and then calling for a rematch at 170 pounds even though Diaz normally competes at 155 pounds. McGregor, in essence, was telling the world that he, as David, wanted to fight Goliath again. The rematch turned out to be one of the best fights in UFC history, which McGregor won via a five-round decision.
Since then, McGregor has become a worldwide phenomenon while dos Anjos, never one to trash talk, has quietly rebuilt his career. After he pulled out of the McGregor fight, dos Anjos lost his lightweight belt to Eddie Alvarez — who then lost it to McGregor — and eventually decided to move up to welterweight, where he has looked like an absolute monster. Now, dos Anjos is set to fight Colby Covington for the interim welterweight title at UFC 225 in Chicago on Saturday night.
The irony for dos Anjos is that Covington is America’s answer to McGregor. The only real difference being that Covington is a wrestler who adds racially charged language to his barrage of verbal attacks.
There would have been other ramification had the McGregor-dos Anjos fight happened at UFC 224. UFC 225, for example, would have lost its most interesting fight: the one between dos Anjos and Covington. That would have put Covington in the position of needing a fight, and a matchup with fellow rising star Darren Till could very easily have been made.
Similarly, had McGregor moved to welterweight, the future of the lightweight division would have become uncertain. As it is, newly crowned king Khabib Nurmagomedov doesn’t have a next fight lined up, and many, including UFC president Dana White, say McGregor is the fight to make. After all, McGregor’s UFC 223 freakout was supposedly triggered by a scuffle between McGregor and Nurmagomedov’s camps.
Again, though, if McGregor had won the interim welterweight at UFC 224, Nurmagomedov would probably have been put to the side because McGregor is only looking for the biggest fights possible. And the biggest fight possible would have been a matchup with Georges St-Pierre, the greatest welterweight of all time.
All these various scenarios and what-ifs are completely moot, however, because of McGregor’s bus freakout. The only thing that matters is McGregor’s June 14 court date. Until America’s justice system decides McGregor’s fate, everything in the UFC is up in the air.