LAS VEGAS — Not quite 10 years ago, while attempting to record a UFC 205 pre-fight show outside of Madison Square Garden with Ariel Helwani and Marc Raimondi, a great fiasco took place. As soon as we started taping, a mob of Irishmen came storming toward us, a couple of hundred strong, singing and cavorting and generally causing a scene of pure pandemonium. That whole show consisted of Ariel holding onto the mic for dear life while Raimondi and I were consumed into the sea of green.
Ah, yes, the good ol’ days of Conor McGregor.
For that one, McGregor was getting ready to fight Eddie Alvarez for a second ***** le, this time at lightweight, and he was a virtual MMA god. I was thinking of that as he showed up to the UFC 329 press conference Thursday — on time, if you can believe that — to hype his fight with Max Holloway. Gone were the Irish who used to take out second mortgages to afford the trans-Atlantic flights to see their hero. What was on hand was a broader MMA fanbase, UFC fans, who gave McGregor the loudest pop when he played the hits, yet it wasn’t quite the same.
I heard somebody in the media call McGregor’s performance “cosplay,” which was an apt enough word for it. This version of Conor, the one who has found God, wanted everyone to know that the “Mac was back,” which the crowd got behind. Still, the conviction wasn’t there.
And maybe using a word like conviction hits a little too close to home, too. Because these days … well, it’s more complicated than it used to be.