Feature: The REAL Conor McGregor

Loud. Obnoxious. Arrogant. Asshole. Felon. These are all words that people like to use when they talk about “The Notorious” Conor McGregor. Ironically, this is someone that I proudly liken myself and my personality to. So when I was talking to my mom the other day about how that guy is one of my biggest role models that I look up to not just inside the cage but in life in general, I can tell why she’d be plenty upset. To the eyes of many, he’s another example of someone that let money get to his head. But if you ask me, everything I wrote above is just pure bullshit. McGregor in my opinion, is probably one of the most misunderstood athletes not just in combat sports but on the planet.

Let’s start off from his roots. Every successful person has a story, and Conor’s is actually quite intriguing. He grew up in Crumlin, Ireland which is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland which is the country’s capital. He was raised by a very hard-working family in a working class neighborhood. As a young kid in elementary school, McGregor actually used to get bullied so badly to the point that he would carry a dumbbell in his backpack to use it as a weapon to defend himself. This is when he first became interested in fighting, so he joined a boxing gym in Crumlin and the rest is history.

Flash forward to his professional career and there are a ton of stories that I can tell that can take us down the adverse road to unprecedented superstardom that McGregor took such as:

-Him almost quitting MMA (didn’t fight for another 22 months) after losing a fight in 69 seconds via submission early in his career that he had been hyping up in which his family came to watch him fight for the 1st time, or

-Him having to teach boxing classes at his old gym at 21 years old because he needed to supplement his unemployment check.

But there’s one I really want to focus on because I feel like it shows the most about his unique personality. So before he even went pro, he actually stopped going to school after he graduated high school and ended up getting a job as an apprentice plumber at the age of 17. He’d be up at 5 AM everyday, work a 10-12 hour shift and then go to the gym to train. I have two words. FUCK THAT. And that’s exactly what he did, he quit his job and his source of income to focus on fighting full-time. No Irish man had ever made it to the UFC and his parents made sure to let him know. They disapproved of his decision so much and were so pissed to the point that Conor and his dad actually got into a really heated confrontation about it and let’s just say it got pretty physical. He told his father he would be a self-made millionaire by 25 and that he’d be sorry when it happens. His dad simply laughed at him. Roughly $235 million later, I guess it’s safe to say Conor is the one laughing now.

Obviously now I don’t think I need to write a whole lot to let you know how much The Notorious has accomplished in his professional career. Two-Weight World Champion (Only 5 other guys have done this), first-ever fighter to simultaneously hold 2 championships in different divisions, fastest knockout ever in a UFC championship fight. I could go on and on and on. But what separates him from other UFC stars to me is not exactly what he’s done, but how he’s done it. This is one of those true rags to riches stories that captivate mass audiences as you can tell by his millions of supporters. Watch this clip of his supporters completely taking over Vegas before his fight against Floyd Mayweather to see just how many of his fans travel across the globe to watch him fight. Heck, watch this video in which he was able to get into Jose Aldo’s head so badly that he predicted exactly what he was going to do, and then knocked him out in 14 seconds. The way he’s truly mastered the art of reading and toying with somebody eles’s mind, the things he does are just simply unprecedented. We’ve never seen anything like this before in combat sports. Picture it this way: The man went from an apprentice plumber living off of welfare checks to reportedly making $130 million to get in a boxing ring with Floyd Mayweather, IN JUST SEVEN YEARS. His fights have accounted for 5 out of the top 7 best selling PPV (Pay-Per-View) in the history of MMA. I'm sorry but for those that want to call him arrogant or an asshole, he has every right to act however the hell he wants after overcoming all the adversity he dealt with and accomplishing all the success he’s had. There’s a difference between arrogance and knowing your worth.

Now you might be thinking yes Ben he can be as hard of a worker as he is, overcome as much adversity as he has and be as successful as he is inside and outside of the octagon, but how could someone possibly be one of your biggest role models when they’ve gotten into as much trouble including a good amount of legal trouble as he’s been in? And I’m not going to disagree there, he has made a ton of questionable mistakes but I know I have as well, I’m sure you have, we all do, that’s life. What matters is how well you own up to and bounce back from those mistakes and that’s part of the MENTALITY that McGregor possesses that makes me look up to him so much. It’s the swagger. The unwavering belief in himself. The confidence to be Conor McGregor and not give a shit about what others think of him. The fact that he is ALWAYS so humble in victory or defeat at the end of the day, no matter how much trash he talked (it’s always a lot) to his opponents leading up to the fight. I was listening to a segment of one of his interviews on Spotify and you can see how humble and grateful he is for everything that he has and how he’s never forgotten about the people that got him to where he is and how he always takes care of them.

But the thing that really stands out to me is his absolutely insane ambition to go after what he wants regardless of how hard or “impossible” it may seem. You’ll never once see him back down from anybody or any challenge in general. When have you ever seen someone else constantly move up and down weight classes to only take the biggest and toughest fights? You see a ton of guys pull out of fights because of injury, Conor had a whole training camp with a torn ACL before his first UFC championship fight and still found a way to win. Winners don’t find excuses they find ways to get it done. That’s not something that applies to just fighting. That’s life right there man. And to tie this back earlier to the point I made earlier, I think it sucks that a lot of the bad publicity gets more attention than the good because Conor McGregor is actually one of the most genuine stars on the planet. I said it before and I’ll say it again. Misunderstood.