The Takedown | Conor McGregor faces his moment of truth against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264
- ‘The Notorious’ took mixed martial arts to giddy heights of mainstream appeal during his rise to superstardom
- His bank account will still be fine, but lose his trilogy fight with ‘The Diamond’ and McGregor’s hopes of being champ again may forever fade
Most pundits who follow mixed martial arts will likely point to November 2016, the moment McGregor defeated Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205. The Irish superstar became a supernova, as the first fighter to hold two belts at the same time in the promotion, and he was being touted as the everlasting future of the sport.
Or there is the media tour before McGregor’s boxing match against Floyd Mayweather in August 2017. While McGregor lost the fight, he was in prime form leading up to the bout, tossing bills, throwing out snappy one-liners and whipping the international press into a frenzy every time he got his hands on a microphone.
Others may point to the animosity filled, supercharged build-up to UFC 229 in October of 2018, when McGregor was set to square off against arch nemesis Khabib Nurmagomedov for the lightweight belt he relinquished because of inactivity. That fight stands as the largest pay-per-view in the sport’s history and the bout at T-Mobile Arena in Nevada was legendary both inside and outside of the cage.
McGregor lost to Nurmagomedov – who has now walked off into retirement, undefeated – and since then, the Dublin native’s star has been burning out instead of burning bright.