Conor McGregor’s still a draw, but not the kind who once turned the combat world green

LAS VEGAS — Not quite 10 years ago, while attempting to record a UFC 205 pre-fight show outside of Madison Square Garden with Ariel Helwani and Marc Raimondi, a great fiasco took place. As soon as we started taping, a mob of Irishmen came storming toward us, a couple of hundred strong, singing and cavorting and generally causing a scene of pure pandemonium. That whole show consisted of Ariel holding onto the mic for dear life while Raimondi and I were consumed into the sea of green. 

Ah, yes, the good ol’ days of Conor McGregor.

For that one, McGregor was getting ready to fight Eddie Alvarez for a second title, this time at lightweight, and he was a virtual MMA god. I was thinking of that as he showed up to the UFC 329 press conference Thursday — on time, if you can believe that — to hype his fight with Max Holloway. Gone were the Irish who used to take out second mortgages to afford the trans-Atlantic flights to see their hero. What was on hand was a broader MMA fanbase, UFC fans, who gave McGregor the loudest pop when he played the hits, yet it wasn’t quite the same.

I heard somebody in the media call McGregor’s performance “cosplay,” which was an apt enough word for it. This version of Conor, the one who has found God, wanted everyone to know that the “Mac was back,” which the crowd got behind. Still, the conviction wasn’t there. 

And maybe using a word like conviction hits a little too close to home, too. Because these days … well, it’s more complicated than it used to be.

An example of just how complicated occurred as I was on my way out of the T-Mobile Arena. I asked a pair of fans, one of whom was draped in the Irish tricolor, if they thought McGregor would win after five years away. The one wearing the flag said, in a non-Irish accent, “I don’t think there’s any way he’ll be denied!” At this, his friend added, “Well … maybe that’s not the best way to put it.” 

This was of course in reference to the elephant in the room, which is McGregor’s sexual assault case that he was held liable for in 2024 that many don’t want to talk about. In a fight-hype environment, especially in Las Vegas, the last thing anyone wants is a buzzkill. Yet it’s a fact that hovers over the fight in some form, adding a dimension that was never there before. It used to be easy to love Conor McGregor, because he had a knack for astonishing the human spirit. 

These days it's easier to dislike him, or to keep a distance, or in any case to keep his asterisks in full view. If you connect the man to the fighter, it’s not been a smooth ride. If you can dissociate, you can see McGregor’s bid for greatest comeback fight of all time as his next improbable feat. 

Nostalgists, particularly, have a hard time letting go for these reasons. We had a lot of good times with Conor, and his “wow factor” still registers on the emotional Richter scale. For many, he represents the wildest days in UFC history, the old “remember whens” that we can gather ’round and yearn for. 

McGregor has meant more to the UFC — and really, the fight game in general — than anyone who has come along this century. The industry moved forward with him, and it was fun to see the world that Conor wanted you to see. Therefore, the natural default tends toward respect. 

And because it’s the fight game, where second and third chances are to be found, it’s tempting to convert the trappings of Conor’s rise and fame into testaments to his “perseverance” and to flip his indiscretions into “adversities.” The hard line between those who can’t stand McGregor and will never forgive him and the ones who will love him no matter what has made his return a polarizing affair. 

It’s all a morality play in the end. Morality, like betting lines, has sides. 

It’s hard to unsee him clocking the old man at the bar. Or throwing a dolly at a bus. Or showing up to Brooklyn during the Floyd Mayweather world tour dressed as a pimp, saying he was Black “from the belly button down.” As filmmaker Joel Coen once said, “We create monsters and then we can’t control them.”  

Then again, I was there when he knocked out Jose Aldo, and it remains one of the single craziest moments the sport has seen. People were hanging on the television cables afterward, as if losing their minds. It’s hard to unsee that, too.

In any case, when asked about Conor’s magnitude at UFC 329, Dana White said it was the biggest gate in UFC history. McGregor is still a draw, in other words. The crowd let up a roar because defiance of that kind is also a cause for celebration. You can hate on Conor all you want, that cheer seemed to say, but he’s still must-see TV.

But what the crowd didn’t do was lose itself in the presence of Conor McGregor.

There weren’t droves of fans singing on the way out, as they did at the MGM Grand Arena before he knocked out Aldo. I can remember red panties being shot in the air like rubber bands. I can remember bottles being thrown before his fight with Nate Diaz, and El Chapo and pool noodles and prophesies, and McGregor snatching Aldo’s belt from the dais to the eruptive delight of Dublin.

Of course, it’s been a long time. When we last saw Conor fight, he was screaming with a broken leg after his trilogy with Dustin Poirier. That was five years ago. The fanbase has changed, and so have perceptions. At one time Ireland lived vicariously through McGregor, yet now it’s different. There was never a fighter, outside of Georges St-Pierre, who was so synonymous with his country. 

When he sat up there Thursday with two custom Irish belts, he talked about owning all the records. It’s the ones outside the Octagon that make you long for the days when he’d say something like that, and the whole fight world went green. 

 Maybe that all changes come Saturday night if McGregor does the improbable by beating the favorite Holloway.