MGM LARGE GARDEN That night, Arena was full of great fighters. It was September 27, 2014 and the UFC 178 main game had a championship at stake. The focus of Las Vegas also shone on the return of a defunct former champion. There were even three future holders scattered all over the bottom card. One of them would soon take over the mixed martial arts.
Conor McGregor entered the Octagon only for the fourth time. He had won his first three UFC outings and had gladly done so, intoxicating an expanding fan base with brazenness in his fights and at the microphone. It was an increasing disturbance, but tonight he faced a considerable step down the stairs. His opponent was a young climber named Dustin Poirier, who was more experienced with 10 trips inside the UFC cage.
Even in that first stage of his rise to MMA, McGregor had established himself as a polarizing figure. His thunderous fists inside the Octagon were widely acclaimed, but his hard mouth-drawing drew a mixture of bouquets and reactions. There were those who imagined McGregor’s timeless accuracy with attacks and calls like a rocket to the top of the sport, and there were those who discredited him grumpily as a loved one and stimulating loved one who would crumble like a Joker card house once the game got tougher.
McGregor had something to prove that night in Las Vegas, and arrived with force and surgery in the beating he put on Poirier. Barely sweating in a first-round tie, McGregor convinced all but the most stubborn skeptics to his exaggerated express. The victory over Poirier was fuel for rockets.
Six-and-a-half years later, the pair will renew their acquaintance on Saturday at the UFC 257 main event in Abu Dhabi, UAE. While the circumstances surrounding the two fights may seem totally different, in their foundation they are fundamentally the same.
Once again, McGregor faces a professional investment test. This is his first fight in more than a year and the most important since a failed challenge against lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018. A victory would legitimize the 32-year-old Irishman’s claim to another shot in the belt of the title he had. A defeat would bring down McGregor from the first tier of MMA fighters, a sport that revolves around him in both history and the bottom line. He would be relegated to a show, certainly a major event show, because his name will still sell fights.
But, would it be enough for this proud fighter to see his name at the top of the marquee, even as a non-contestant?
MCGREGOR HAS HAD a greater impact on the sports world than any MMA fighter in history. It cannot be defined only with a drum and a large drum. McGregor has authored some impressive performances, most notably a 13-second knockout of long-lived featherweight king Jose Aldo in 2015. It was the first step in McGregor’s departure to become the first to reign as champion in two UFC weight classes simultaneously. It was a success that will always shine on his resume.
However, as happened at the time of Poirier’s first fight, McGregor is now the focal point of a division of perceived reality. One way to look at McGregor in 2021 is as a transcendent star who has spent the last few years becoming the richest MMA athlete in expanding her brand beyond the cage. He has done so by taking on an unthinkably lucrative boxing match with Floyd Mayweather and launching a very popular global whiskey brand. The other perspective of the current McGregor is that with just one win in the last four years and only two dates inside the cage in his name, he is more famous than a fighter. An athlete who lost focus, deviated and now only gets serious again, maybe too late.
The brilliance of McGregor’s success in the Octagon has been tarnished by problems outside of it. He has been arrested several times for transgressions captured in a video: he attacked a bus full of UFC fighters, punched a Dublin pub boss and destroyed the phone of a fan trying to take a photo . His spoils during the buildup of the Mayweather and Nurmagomedov struggles turned into racism and xenophobia. Sexual assault investigations were also reported in Ireland and France. McGregor’s name has appeared in the media for all the wrong reasons.
If McGregor achieves an impressive victory over Poirier, who ranks No. 2 in a lightweight division in which Nurmagomedov has announced his retirement, this would immediately erase questions about McGregor. as a fighter which have arisen during his last years of inactivity.
If McGregor loses? His status as a UFC cash cow is not in jeopardy – it will remain a box office draw no matter what happens this weekend – but a defeat would deal a severe blow to his relevance among 155-pound aspirants and it could throw a bucket of cold water into its competitive fire.
Do you remember that fire? The last time we saw him really on fire in the UFC, he was consuming New York’s Madison Square Garden on November 12, 2016. It was the night McGregor became the first champion of the promotion by eliminating Eddie Alvarez to add the light belt. on the featherweight strap he already owned. McGregor entered this fight already as a star, but his performance at The World’s Most Famous Arena set him apart. As he celebrated in the cage with UFC belts hung over his shoulder, a sight never seen before, McGregor was sitting on top of the world.
Then the world stopped and turned away. We would never see these two shiny pieces of brass and leather held by McGregor again. He did not defend either of the two belts and, in the spring of 2018, both were withdrawn from him for inactivity. By then, he had also been diverted to a side boxing display and was predictably eliminated by Mayweather.
With his glorious glory, McGregor returned to the Octagon in October 2018 and became the victim of more than one Nurmagomedov assault. McGregor had no commitment to the champion in a round-robin blockbuster, as many expected to see. McGregor had always seemed one step above the rest, capable of more because he expected more from himself and for himself. But has McGregor’s magic spread so thin in recent years that it has disappeared like a rabbit in a top hat?
DEPARTURE FROM SATURDAY NIGHT with Poirier is a formidable challenge, much more so than McGregor’s dance last January with a missing Donald Cerrone, who knocked him down in 40 seconds. McGregor also did a quick job of Poirier when they met in 2014, but the 2021 version of the Louisiana lightweight is more mature, tough, and dangerous.
It’s admirable that McGregor is even fighting. His star power alone could have qualified him, at least in the eyes of UFC matchmakers and bean counters, for a title challenge. McGregor, as he often did during his rise to the sport, takes risks to win your chance to grab the old gold ring.
This weekend will test McGregor’s preparation and jeopardize his position in the sport. Being beaten by the indomitable Nurmagomedov is one thing, but dropping a fight against Poirier (certainly an excellent fighter, but not having the aura of a champion) would bury McGregor in the hierarchy of title contenders. Would McGregor have the decision to rebuild? I would have that fire? Or would it be preyed upon by light weights that suddenly strengthened themselves by detecting a vulnerability that was not previously detected?
McGregor is a master of the mind game. This has always been his superpower. His self-confidence doesn’t come off the charts and his style of beating his opponents has worked like a sharp punch to fill his head with rage and undermine any strategy they lead into the cage. McGregor can counteract out-of-control aggressions. But if Poirier maintains his balance and eliminates playing ability, why can’t he next? If McGregor can no longer intimidate, can he shine at the highest level?
McGregor’s appeal doesn’t entirely depend on whether it’s untouchable in the cage. Of course, it helps because in every sport there is an aura around unstoppable athletes. But much of what makes a McGregor fight special lies in the pomp and circumstance, the weeks of anticipation that heighten the spectacle that enters the bright stage on the night of the fight. Even if McGregor is kicked out of Contenderville on Saturday night, he will continue to live in a majestic mansion on Money Fight Avenue. His boast will always be sold.
Still, what has made McGregor’s struggles so great is that they have meant something more enriching than dollars and pennies. The two championship fights he won, and even the one he lost, produced as much heat as the spotlights that shone on them. Those and almost all of his other nights of fighting have been memorable in the greatest way possible, from the mastery and art of the fighter to the decibels and joy of the crowd. There is no other fighter in combat sports whose presence lifts a track off the ground and reaches the stratosphere. This only happens when gold is within McGregor’s reach.
Saturday night, we find out if the MMA world will still orbit around that Conor McGregor.