Say what you will about Conor McGregor, but at his peak, it\u2019s tough to argue against him being one of the top fighters and one of the best promoters to ever compete in combat sports.<\/p>\n
He manifested becoming the first simultaneous two-division champion in UFC history. He competed against Floyd Mayweather in one of the biggest boxing matches of all-time. McGregor also remains the single greatest draw in the UFC with the pay-per-view sales to back it up.<\/p>\n
But McGregor admits now that splitting time between being the best fighter he could be, along with maintaining his status as the most prolific salesman in the sport, took a toll on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, yes I\u2019ve just come on board as a promoter and owner of the bare-knuckle, for what a year or so, but I\u2019m doing it a long, long time,\u201d McGregor said at the BKFC 82 post-fight press conference. \u201cI came up through the school of the Fertitta empire and with Dana White at the helm and I was the prot\u00e9g\u00e9. I\u2019ll tell you this and this is why we must really, really, really put our maximum respect and support behind our combatants in here because to fight as well as promote is the real deal. To promote on its own is easy and also coincidentally, to fight on its own is easy. People don\u2019t really realize that. You get these fighters, they come up and no one cares about you. You\u2019re rocking under the radar, no one asks you a question, you get to show up and have fun and do your thing and there\u2019s no stress of the outside world and it\u2019s perfect.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen when you rise, you\u2019ve got to add this promotional element to it and both of them combined is incredibly draining. I wouldn\u2019t be the first to tell you it almost broke me, and to be honest, maybe it did break me. As I went on and achieved massive success and global, otherworldly superstardom. It overcame me at times.\u201d<\/p>\n
McGregor cashed a nine-figure payday for his fight against Mayweather but transitioning to boxing and then back to MMA again arguably stunted what was arguably becoming one of the most prolific UFC careers of all time.<\/p>\n
After returning from a nearly two-year long hiatus, McGregor fell to Khabib Nurmagomedov in what became the highest selling UFC pay-per-view of all time and his record since becoming a two-division champion sits at 1-3.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s impossible to say if the burden of fighting and superstardom played a part in McGregor\u2019s struggles but that factor can\u2019t be completely ignored.<\/p>\n
But McGregor recognizing those issues gives him a new-found respect for the fighters who are following in his footsteps.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo promote and fight at a high level deserves support and respect and that is what I\u2019m here for,\u201d McGregro said. \u201cTo ensure that is what happens. To promote on its own, it\u2019s absolutely amazing. I put on a nice suit. I put on a nice watch. It\u2019s what I love to do. But don\u2019t get me wrong, I miss the fight game, and I\u2019m excited about what\u2019s ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he\u2019s been pushing BKFC at an exponential rate since becoming a co-owner, McGregor recently told MMA Fighting that he\u2019s preparing for six months of seclusion to get totally focused on his plans to return to the UFC for the upcoming card at the White House in 2026.<\/p>\n
Right now, McGregor has two fights left on his UFC contract and he\u2019s spoken often about eventually crossing over to compete in a bare-knuckle fight.<\/p>\n
That said, it\u2019s tough to believe the UFC would just let McGregor go anywhere else without putting up fight and those talks might already be happening as the Irish superstar plots his return to action.<\/p>\n
:I know Dave [Feldman] wants me in the bare-knuckle,\u201d McGregor said about the BKFC president. \u201cThe UFC are concocting a new contract deal or whatever\u2019s going to happen, I don\u2019t know. We\u2019ll see. We\u2019ll take it day-by-day but God is great, and I thank him everyday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Say what you will about Conor McGregor, but at his peak, it\u2019s tough to argue against him being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[33307,42718,49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-191418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-bkfc","9":"tag-bkfc-news","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc","17":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}