UFC star Conor McGregor opens up in GQ Style interview
Conor McGregor not only intends to step between the ropes into Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s world to box the undefeated champion, the UFC star also plans to win.
McGregor made that quite clear in an interview with GQ Style. The UFC lightweight champion appears on the cover of the Spring 2017 issue.
“I’m pursuing that, and no one can stop me from pursuing that,” McGregor told the magazine in a partial transcript of the interview that was released Wednesday.
McGregor believes his youth, size and power will be the difference, even though he has never boxed as an amateur or professional.
“Age waits for no man,” McGregor said. “He’s 40 years of age. He’s little. He’s got a little head on him. Honestly, my fist is bigger than his head. I sleep people. I put people unconscious. I’m stating facts. If I hit a man, his head is gonna go into the bleachers. You understand that? If I crack that little head of his, it’s gonna go clean off his shoulder and up into the bleachers.”
That fight almost certainly would be the most lucrative in combat sports history. It also would dramatically increase McGregor’s profile, though that seems difficult to imagine considering how visible he has become in the past year.
McGregor has few peers when it comes to self-promotion. His face is everywhere, and he draws massive crowds everywhere he goes.
The biggest draw the UFC has seen even sold out a theater in England last month for a question-and-answer session that was streamed worldwide on pay per view.
He loves to flaunt his success on social media. And while he has embraced living the Hollywood lifestyle in Los Angeles between fights and often renting out mansions in Las Vegas for his fight camps, McGregor brushes off one aspect of his fame.
“People think I’m a celebrity,” he said. “I’m not a celebrity. I break people’s faces for money and bounce.”
The 28-year-old Dublin native certainly hasn’t embraced the politics of the Hollywood set.
McGregor’s last title defense was a knockout of Eddie Alvarez in the main event of UFC 205 on Nov. 12 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
That was days after the presidential election, and McGregor recalls the protesters on the streets of Manhattan as he was preparing for his fight.
He struggled to sympathize with their plight.
“I feel like you’re in charge of your own situation,” he told the magazine. “When you start blaming others for your situation, like I see all these people screaming at these politicians, and I was like, ‘It’s the wrong mindset.’”
There is no doubt McGregor has blazed his own path in the UFC. In three years since signing with the organization, he has reached heights never dreamed of by others who have fought before him.
He’s not close to being ready to settle.
McGregor is on a hiatus from fighting because he doesn’t want to stress out his longtime girlfriend, who is expecting the couple’s first child.
He announced his break after the win over Alvarez. That was when he also revealed his next business move.
He continues to insist he wants a bigger piece of the pie, especially since he’s the biggest asset in an organization that sold to Hollywood conglomerate WME-IMG in July for a reported $4.2 billion.
“I want to negotiate what I’m worth,” McGregor told GQ Style. “I want to put my analytics forward, man-to-man, and to be like, ‘This is what I’m owed now. Pay me.’ And then we can talk.
“Potentially, down the road, an equity, interest or something. I’m just letting them know I want something else.”
McGregor has shown he usually gets what he wants.
One thing that is certain is McGregor will continue to be in business for Conor McGregor.
While there has been a unionization movement among some fighters, McGregor doesn’t envision himself participating in such efforts.
“I saw this union thing they tried to do. They reminded me of the people that march about the politicians,” he said. “You gotta do it. You’re in control of yourself.
“People like to blame others. I think a person should just look at their own situation, look around them, find out what they wish to do, and seek and go and do that. Like all these fighters: ‘This union is gonna save us!’ What do you mean, it’s gonna save you, exactly? I just think it’s a crazy thing to spend energy on.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-277-8028. Follow @adamhilllvrj on Twitter.