UFC: Stephen A. Smith says Conor McGregor is now ‘more marketing tool’ than ‘legitimate weapon’
- ESPN analyst insists the former featherweight and lightweight king is finished as a ‘fighter at a world championship level’
- ‘Conor McGregor is still as great as he ever was … at talking, at instigating, and promoting himself and his events,’ Smith says
Conor McGregor’s position at the top level of MMA is certainly up in the air after the former two division UFC champion underwent surgery on a broken leg last weekend.
But ESPN analyst Stephen A Smith sees no more titles in the Irishman’s future.
Smith was inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas working the ESPN broadcast desk for UFC 264, when Dustin Poirier secured a TKO via doctor stoppage after McGregor suffered a broken leg in the final seconds of the first round of their trilogy fight.
“The Conor McGregor of today is more marketing tool than a legitimate weapon inside the Octagon,” Smith said, in a segment on Stephen A’s World.
“McGregor is on record saying that unless someone knocks him out he doesn’t even see it as a defeat, that it means nothing to him. He can feel that way if he wants but everybody else, let’s just say we don’t track it that way. The UFC sure as hell doesn’t track it that way.
“Because on Conor McGregor’s official record he’s got losses listed in each of his last two fights, in three of his last four fights, in four of his last seven fights.”