Issue 139
March 2016
No one accomplished more in 2015 than Fighters Only's Fighter of the Year Conor McGregor – and he says he’ll do it all again in 2016, too.
Run the game
Winning titles is one thing in the UFC’s game of thrones. Gaining the support of the fans is another. But in 2015, Conor McGregor was the undisputed king of every aspect of the game. He entertained across three continents on a world media tour, took the UFC featherweight title from José Aldo and put plenty of cash in his back pocket, too.
Significantly, his fame grew and grew and grew. All the time, moreover, he was gathering fans. Millions of them. Fans who adore him, fans amazed by his brazenness and fans who once doubted him.
But underlying all of this, is that McGregor spent the year winning fans over through his endeavor. He put on a beatdown in Boston. He won the interim featherweight crown as an underdog. Then he delivered with a stunning 13-second knockout of a champion who hadn’t been beaten in 10 years. And he predicted the outcome of each, to boot.
McGregor is already a legend in the eyes of the Irish fans who swarmed in their masses to his two fights in Las Vegas last year, but the 27-year-old Irishman’s global appeal grows exponentially, with every appearance and every fight. His doubters are dissipating, and should he defeat Rafael dos Anjos and claim the UFC lightweight belt on March 5th, again in the fight capital of the world, his climb to greatness will be complete.
The stardom McGregor experienced in the last year had a profound effect on him. The UFC featherweight champion cannot walk down the road without being stopped – neither in the United States, but noticeably in his homeland, where he has crossed over into mainstream stardom.
“For a period of time I didn’t want to go anywhere. It was an event every time I went somewhere. Now, I don’t give a s**t,” he tells FO. “When I was in LA and Vegas (in the summer), I was planning on how I was going to come back to Ireland. I thought it would be like a fish bowl. But this is my home.”
What McGregor experienced, though, stopped over and over again for an autographed T-shirt or a selfie, it didn’t feel like a chore. It felt more like a warm embrace.
“When I walked into the gym, there were all these kids and all this stuff I had to sign. That’s OK. I helped build that gym. That’s my home. I feel comfortable in there no matter what. People might be videoing me eating my food and the guy’s trying not to make eye contact with me but I can see what he’s doing. That used to really freak me out. But now I’m cool with it. It is what it is. It’s OK.
“I feel free to go anywhere with no hesitation. The fans are great. It’s a great thing to walk down the street and see a little kid who looks up to you.” McGregor tells of the day he was in a restaurant eating: “There was a girl sitting there and I just turn around and she’s bawling, crying. She was literally in tears crying.
“It was like I was someone from One Direction or something. It’s a good feeling. I tell myself it’s a good feeling.” That’s the kind of impact ‘Mystic Mac’ now has on fans. And it will continue to grow.
Only the strong survive
The anatomy of 2015 for McGregor was one of a perfect crescendo. He wiped out Dennis Siver in January. It felt like a tune-up. And when Aldo was injured in the summer, McGregor carried the UFC 189 promotion almost single-handedly. Irish hordes painted Las Vegas green. But it was at UFC 194 where he crowned his year. “UFC 194 was the biggest night of my career, the biggest night of the company’s career and the biggest night in the game,” he says.
The seeds had been sown early in the year. Remember that media tour and the finale in Dublin? McGregor made Aldo feel the full effect of being in the Irish capital: his town. When he looks back on the event in the summer, with Aldo pulling out of the July fight at the MGM Grand, McGregor explains: “You would not understand the amount of adversity I had to conquer to make it to the Octagon that night. You don’t understand the amount of cities I traveled to and world tours I went on, the amount of media obligations and the amount of times I felt like I was a monkey locked in a cage in the zoo and they feed me a banana and tell me to dance.
“I overcame a lot of adversity and a lot of hard work to get to that Octagon. That was just one side of it. The other side was how my body was reacting to the heavy training and the desert air. It’s a cruel, cruel climate out there. You don’t sustain good life out there. The only animals that are out there are lizards, reptiles. You don’t see furry, fluffy animals out there because they cannot survive. I overcame a lot in that fight.”
When McGregor defeated late replacement Mendes by TKO inside two rounds, there was a rare outpouring of emotion. McGregor shed tears on the Octagon he had bloodied. “Giving back to the people who have given so much to me. That is why the emotion came out,” explained McGregor, insisting he would be nothing without his family and fan base.
McGregor highlights that he considers himself a performer for his fans, and the paying public. “When you’re in it and you’re there in the Octagon, I just feel free. I don’t feel pressure when I make that walk on fight night. Someone asked me what it’s like to make that walk in the arena. I swear on my life when I walk out on fight night I’m in shackles and chains, and when I get to the Octagon I peel it all off.
“When I finally set foot in the Octagon and place my feet on that special UFC canvas, I feel free. In my head, I’m just thinking ‘freedom’ because all the other s**t is done. It means nothing now. Now it’s finally here. I’m not doing this for this – fake acting and pretending, trying to give emotion to some guy who wants emotion from me for a shot. I don’t do this for that. But I understand it’s a double-edged sword and you must do that. I do it for the competition and to have that feeling of freedom.
“You’re laying it all on the line and it’s certainly an out-of-body experience. You’re giving everything you’ve got. You’re prepared to die in there and I’m also prepared to kill in there. I love it. It’s what I live for.”
New lease of life
McGregor was also a revelation in the TUF house, where he won new fans through his honesty. He found the contestants had a vibrancy that inspired him: “They want to do it, to succeed, and I found a new energy from that,” he explains. “I thought, ‘This is what I’m doing it for. It’s a damn good life to live’. Dana White said it when he was sat beside me watching the (qualifying) fights in TUF. He said, ‘Look at this life. We’re sitting here in the best seats in the house watching fights live.’
“I’m sitting there listening to him say that and an hour before I was thinking, ‘I might not even show up. I don’t give a f**k about any of this. I’m out of here. I’ve done what I need to do. I’ve raked in $60 million for them. See you later. Don’t call me unless there’s a fight. Call me when the weigh-in day is there. I’ll show up on weight and I’ll fight.’ That’s what I was thinking.
“But then I was watching the fights and listening to him talk and I started to think, ‘Look where we are. We’re sitting in Las Vegas, comfortable, watching these kids fight and chasing a dream to change their lives.’ I picked up a new lease of life from that. It was tough but we got it done. I enjoyed it.”
But perhaps even more importantly, the public enjoyed McGregor. This was a different side to him, a man prepared to tell other aspiring fighters some of the secrets of his own success, a generosity in sharing his unique mindset, which came across as selfless at times. The secret of his success, indeed, is himself.
“When you keep it real with somebody and lay it out – and I did lay it out – and say I’m not going to baby you, I’m not going to hold your hand, world champions don’t need their hand held,” he says. “If they can’t do that, take a step back, reassess and come back, you’re not ready for this. I told the truth and let the chips fall where they may.” It was an intriguing side of himself that he revealed.
“That atmosphere and that vibe we created in the gym – we’re not truly friends here, this is business – helped us. It was important for them to stay injury-free as well. They were already banged up. That wasn’t shown in the clip. Every one of them had something wrong with them – a banged-up elbow, a banged-up knee, a busted foot, a busted face.
“You can’t take people like that, stick them in a house, bring them to the gym twice a day and let them punch the heads off each other. They won’t make it to the fight. They’ll be drained by the time they set foot inside the Octagon. They’ll be flat. I pulled the reins back and let them know they were surrounded by enemies and not friends, but we must handle the situation the best way we can. The way we handle it is by training smart and getting to the fights.”
Game changer
McGregor may be a 27-year-old, but his mind has tuned in a particular way for almost 14 years. “I’ve been doing this game a long time,” he adds. “I understand how to control emotion at the highest level. I understand when to strike and when not to strike.”
His fascination with movement also came to the fore in 2015, visibly with movement guru Ido Portal in December in Las Vegas, ahead of the José Aldo fight. His focus was precision over power and accuracy over speed. And it paid off. The Irishman may just have shifted the paradigm in the sport, and influenced a new way, a new generation.
But as ever McGregor insists he’s not done all he has alone. He’s been ably supported by a loyal band of brothers out of his SBG Ireland home team, headed up by head coach John Kavanagh and including main sparring partner and UFC welterweight standout Gunnar Nelson. Together they’re a tightly-knit crew, who put loyalty above all else.
“I’m looking after everyone who is around me and everyone who is with me,” he explains, before adding that he would like to do much more charitable work in the future, possibly even setting up a foundation. “I feel my country is flourishing. I think sometimes we focus too much on what we don’t have, as opposed to what we do have.
“People who do that stay with what they don’t have. I understand what works for me and you have to keep a positive mind frame and realize what you have rather than what you have not. I’m still only 27. I’m still warming up in the fight game.
“I just don’t like disloyal people. I think there are a lot of snakes around and I don’t respect that. There’s a lot of runners in this game. A lot of scared people in this game who run from their surroundings. They blame their surroundings. It’s almost a fear of themselves and I don’t relate to it.
“For me, it’s about celebrating your surroundings, trusting the people around you, trusting your training... That is how you succeed. For one person to succeed, everybody must succeed.”
The global exposure has also taught him to have thick skin, he admits. “I don’t care what people don’t think,” he says with a shrug. “I genuinely don’t pay attention to it. I never did, never will. I am who I am. Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m not. I don’t pretend to be anything else. Life is about growing and improving and getting better. I’m only getting better.
“But when the fight gets announced, it’s a media frenzy and a fan frenzy. It’s something they’ve never experienced before. Even veterans have never experienced this before. It’s different when they’re fighting me. It’s a different kind of frenzy that happens and it shuts people down. For me, this is normal. This is my life. I live this life every day. I am accustomed to it. They are not. It must be a horrible time for these people and I feel for them in a way.
“When it comes to it all, it’s easy for people to look in from the outside, but when you put it all together – not just the weigh-ins, not just the fight, all of the other stuff – nobody can do it better than me. Every other person crumbles. I show up.”
And the fans are showing up for McGregor too. And in record-breaking numbers.
No place like home
Winning the mental game
Though McGregor captured UFC gold from Aldo in Vegas, his father Tony believes the battle was won months before in Dublin, during the UFC 189 world media tour when ‘The Notorious’ famously snatched the then-champ’s belt in front of thousands of fans.
“It must have been fairly embarrassing for the champion to have to finish the press tour in the contender’s hometown,” says McGregor St. “Aldo didn’t want to be there, not for one second. Conor definitely won the psychological war. I didn’t think he’d be able to get into Aldo’s head, but he did it. Aldo just wanted to get out of there and be back in Rio.”
Inspired by sport
I like the way you move
“I like sport, I assess the movement,” says McGregor. “I like football and rugby. I feel those sports are tactical wars of collision and evasion. It’s like an army. One team must map out how to take out the other team. They collide with them, take them out and take that ball back, and the other team must map out a route to evade.
“I think rugby is a little bit better. They have one thing the footballers don’t have – that’s attrition. They can go because the play continues. Football guys might start strong but they would fade. Rugby is a bit more continuous.”
Mystic Mac
He predicts these things
The 155lb championship and Rafael dos Anjos await McGregor in March. And while he’s yet to offer a typical prediction for the outcome of the fight, he foresees the route his year will take.
He tweeted: “One way. No stops. Back to back to back.” Accompanying that post, a picture of an open-top bus in New York City, with four huge images of "The Notorious" drawn 12 feet tall. He’s here to take over.
