As the biggest superstar in the sport, Conor McGregor receives different treatment from his fellow fighters.
One cost of the fame is that his every action is magnified. Anything he utters finds more ears and anything he does finds more eyes than anyone else in the game.
A prime example is what went down backstage in Gdansk. Let’s be clear, McGregor’s use of the six-letter f-word to Artem Lobov was wrong. The man himself admitted as much in his apology. However, he wasn’t the first UFC fighter to drop the gay slur and sadly, he’s unlikely to be the last.
Colby Covington called Fabricio Werdum the f-word in an Instagram Live video, Michael Bisping said it to Luke Rockhold after UFC 199 and Nate Diaz was suspended by the UFC in 2013 for calling Bryan Carraway “the biggest fag in the world” in a tweet. While the other examples may be news to some people reading this, pretty much everyone will remember the McGregor debacle.
McGregor’s controversy wasn’t necessarily more egregious than the aforementioned examples. The increased spotlight shone on him, in every situation, not just this particular one, can be directly attributed to the fame.
A new king will rise #UFC223 https://t.co/kTUWGrgXBs
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) April 2, 2018
The talk
“People are always saying about the talk and I talk and I talk and I talk, but guess fucking what? I back it up! I back it up!” Conor McGregor at the UFC GO BIG press conference, 2015.
The problem with claiming the ability to back up every vow you make is that when you cannot follow through on something, everyone will jump on you. McGregor is currently experiencing this over a tweet he sent in March.
His ‘stay ready’ tweet was very obviously another iteration of his quote, ‘I stay ready, so I don’t have to get ready.’ Whether or not he was ready to save UFC 223, the promotion certainly wasn’t ready to throw him in against Khabib Nuragomedov on six days’ notice. Instead, featherweight champion Max Holloway was given the call.
Stay ready.
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) March 24, 2018
That pesky magnifying glass
McGregor never said, at least publicly, that he would be ready to step in and save the day on April 7. One man who did was Eddie Alvarez who actually announced on the MMA Hour, “somebody might get scrapped, so I’ll be ready for that.”
Alvarez was contacted by the promotion when Ferguson pulled out, but was unable make good on his promise because he was too heavy. He held up his hand and took responsibility for not being able to back up the talk. Despite this, very few people are tearing into ‘the Underground King’ quite like they are with McGregor.
Both Nurmagomedov and his manager Ali Abdelaziz have thrown McGregor’s words back in his face.
Where are you now? @TheNotoriousMMA
— khabib nurmagomedov (@TeamKhabib) April 1, 2018
The @TheNotoriousMMA says Stay ready but when I asked @danawhite where is he at, he said he’s in Syria on vacation and his phone has no signal #
— Ali Abdelaziz (@AliAbdelaziz00) April 2, 2018
And, of course, Ferguson is the latest to get in on the act. With cringeworthy execution, he quoted the tweet in response to McGregor’s infamous dick joke.
.Can’t Pull Out If You Never Fight McNuggets- Stay In Your Lane McDucker, Good Job “Staying Ready”™️ https://t.co/LNp8ksyI0U
— Tony Ferguson (@TonyFergusonXT) April 3, 2018
For what it’s worth, Dana White claimed he wanted McGregor to promote his return properly. So, bringing him in as a late notice replacement wasn’t an option in his eyes.
We sincerely doubt this will be the last we hear of it. That McGregor tweet has given his rivals trash talk fuel for the foreseeable future. We can add it to the list of hackneyed insults referring to his submission losses and the perception that he is a ‘clown’.
