The truth of the matter is, Conor McGregor is more Clubber Lang than Rocky Balboa, even if he sees himself in both. He’s more Chael Sonnen than Ronda Rousey, at least in his gift to tense up a room. And he’s more himself than any other fighter, which either speaks to your sense of awe or directly to your resentment. What a world he’s created. The "Notorious" McGregor will tell you with a straight face about the revitalizing air of Los Angeles, and you of course will not believe him. But you will believe that he believes himself, which is enough to suspend the facts from getting loose.
He taps the glass, and the facts change direction like a spooked school of fish. This, as you might imagine, is a nice fighter trait.
And in this way, McGregor is a fight game original. We always try to affix our one-of-a-kinds to something familiar, to understand them better, and in his case we keep coming up short. This is a new sport being redefined by the year. Ego, when saddled with talent, can smash through any glass ceiling. If you think that McGregor is out of hand now, wait and see what happens if he beats Jose Aldo on Dec. 12.
It’s about to get a little medieval up in this hizzy.
No, the UFC doesn’t have too many tyrants that grow increasingly unsatisfied after every feeding. They do in the fantastic Irishman who has not yet defeated Jose Aldo in the cage but is already plotting his despotic march through the lightweight division, sticking the letters UFC in his back pocket, and converting his bosses into servants. The monster is straining against the last few ropes that are containing him, and we all know it. Beat Aldo? That will not only prove McGregor is a top-flight talent in the world, but the grandeur will finally match his mouth. McGregor’s broad list of worldly conquerables will only expand.
Which is, of course, kind of fun to think about. How ridiculous can this all get?
If anything, the "what happens if" prospect of UFC 194’s main event is as big reason to tune in as anything else. He and Aldo are artisan strikers who know how to execute in space and cut angles and lash lead legs. The fight is brilliant from a technical standpoint. And there’s also a sense of pending going on here. If McGregor prevails over Aldo, who hasn’t lost in 10 years? Dear god. You saw the "Go Big" McGregor back in September. We’ll be putting "dandyism" and "iron fist" into the same sentence, and confusing red carpets with ascots and thrones with coxcombs.
McGregor is already proclaiming himself the company. As the savior of UFC 189 — when he beat the wrestler Chad Mendes, billed at the time as the antidote — McGregor put himself on par with the businessmen who gave him the platform. The one heading into UFC 194 believes the creases in his slacks look a lot like the ones in Lorenzo and Frank’s. We haven’t seen too many fighters with that kind of audacity or delusion. Such is the intense ambition of McGregor, who thinks big. Very big. He tends to be…like, omnipossessional…just like the powers that be. Will they collide or collude?
He’s a victory away from finding out.
The thing is, McGregor really could sell out Croke Park or headline UFC 200 at the new big arena that’s being built in Vegas and do vast business. The Irish love him, the Brazilians hate him, and the Americans are all over the map. Everybody cares, though. In some ways, McGregor is as big as his imagination, which right now is where everybody who has followed his rise up the ranks currently resides. If he beats Aldo, his taste for extravagance and excessiveness could very well bust the seams of imagination.
It’s fun to think about how lunatic things could get.
And if he loses, well, that’s the way the fight game goes. In that case somebody will just have to remind him that the air in LA isn't all that clean.
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