Conor McGregor announced himself on the UFC stage coming in as a late replacement and knocking out Marcus Brimmage in Sweden back in 2013.
‘The Notorious’ followed up his impressive debut win with a comprehensive victory over Max Holloway in Boston. A result made all the more remarkable given that he blew out his ACL during the fight and Max Holloway’s current status as one of the world’s best.
Given his meteoric rise, it was only a matter of time before McGregor brought the UFC back to Ireland.
The organisation’s only previous trip here was in 2009 when Dan Henderson defeated Rich Franklin in a light-heavyweight main event fight.
The only Irish man on the card that night was one, Tom Egan, a school mate of McGregor’s and the man credited with getting ‘The Notorious’ into MMA way back when.
McGregor eventually got his chance to bring the UFC to Dublin in 2014 when he faced Diego Brandão in a card that included five Irish fighters in total, all of whom picked up wins on the night.
It was on this night that McGregor uttered the famous line; “We’re not here to take part, we’re here to take over.”
Ever since that historic night fans have longed to see the Crumlin man fight in Ireland once more. However, there is a lot of red tape that comes with putting on pay-per-view events overseas.
Dane White hinted at McGregor fighting at Croke Park less than a year ago, when talking about the possibility of the SBG man taking on legendary fighter Georges St. Pierre.
“I don’t know where that would be. We could do it in Croke Park in Ireland, where there’s like 100,000 seats.” White told TSN.
The problem with Croke Park is the residential curfew around the iconic stadium, which makes the likelihood of McGregor fighting at the home of Gaelic Games slim given the UFC’s tendency to cater to the American pay-per-view market.
At last night’s UFC 229 pre-fight press conference Conor McGregor was asked about the possibility of one day returning to fight in Ireland.
It was something that ‘The Notorious’ seemed very keen to do, but highlighted that he is aware of the situation around Croke Park.
“That’s what I said the other day. I mean, where is the Dublin fight? I know there’s situations with the Croke Park stadium. We want to do big, big, big.”
The Irish man then stated that it did not matter the location of the fight, all that matters is that he gets to put on a show in his homeland one more time before he retires.
“But I’ll tell you what. I’d fight in The Ringside, I’d fight in The Ringside on South Circular Road where I made my boxing debut and my MMA debut also.
“It’s a pub and it fits about 50 people but I’d fucking fight it in it. You’ve got to ask these guys here, you’ve got to ask Dana and these guys here because I certainly must, must, must fight in Ireland before I call it a day.”
Let’s start a petition…
McGregor to Croker 2019??
