\u201cI would love to punch Conor McGregor in the face.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\nFor his part, McGregor doesn\u2019t seem all that interested in granting Gaethje\u2019s wish, especially if he gets through Holloway for the second time this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoin the queue,\u201d McGregor said at UFC 329 media day on Wednesday. \u201cThere\u2019s a few [calling for that]. Look, he has the lightweight belt, fair play to him. Holloway put him face down, ass up [at UFC 300], though. Badly. Badly face down.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m not even thinking of it at this time. Would I go down to lightweight again? Also that\u2019s another thing I\u2019m not so sure. I fancy the triple crown. Less with the disrespect, you f*cking bum.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201ctriple crown\u201d refers to McGregor\u2019s interest in adding a third title to his collection after previously holding gold at lightweight and featherweight.<\/p>\n
First things first, McGregor has to get through Holloway while coming back from a five-year layoff and recovering from a broken leg suffered in his last outing in 2021.<\/p>\n
McGregor understands there are plenty of people doubting him ahead of Saturday\u2019s card, but that only adds extra motivation to show he\u2019s truly back to his best form.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing better than proving people wrong,\u201d McGregor said. \u201cPeople are entitled to their opinion. Some are valid. There\u2019s some questions. Time out. Injury. Lifestyle. I know. There you go. Let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to go in Saturday night and shut them all up again. The business is on the rise. The money is coming in. Get into this game, we\u2019re rocking and rolling. \u2018The Mac\u2019 is back.\u201d<\/p>\n
At his peak, McGregor was not only a massive draw and the first ever simultaneous two-division champion in UFC history, he arguably changed MMA more than any single fighter to ever set foot in the octagon.<\/p>\n
A decade has now passed since he held two titles and called himself \u201cchamp-champ,\u201d but McGregor believes he\u2019s still more than capable of changing the game all over again with his comeback.<\/p>\n
\u201cShake up the game,\u201d McGregor said. \u201cShake up the business for sure. Prove myself. To myself, I am who I say I am. I am that I am.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conor McGregor hasn\u2019t fought in five years, but he remains the biggest draw in combat sports so it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396,14855],"class_list":["post-788096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}