The point could be made that retirement is the hardest part of a professional athlete’s career. Competitors are defined by their athletic ability their entire lives, and letting go means losing a part, if not most, of their identity.
No matter how difficult it may be, retirement is a necessity. At a certain point, an athlete’s body can no longer compete at the highest level, no matter how much effort is put in. This is especially true in high contact sports like mixed martial arts, where a high amount of damage is dealt to the body at an extremely frequent rate, heightening the risk of injury.
Mixed Martial Arts greats like Georges St-Pierre, Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen have handled their exits from the spotlight with grace, entering the commentary scene or other professional spaces. Others, however, have not.
This brings us to the situation surrounding combat sports icon Conor McGregor. McGregor’s rise to stardom was unprecedented. After dominating the Cage Warriors scene in 2012, McGregor entered the Ultimate Fighting Championship and began a dominant run in the featherweight division. His formidable stand-up game in the octagon matched with his skill on the microphone made the Irishman a pay-per-view dream for UFC CEO Dana White.
After a six-fight win streak, McGregor was set for a title fight against now-UFC-Hall-of-Famer Jose Aldo at UFC 194. The pair went on a worldwide press tour to build hype for the fight, where McGregor constantly badgered Aldo with trash-talk. Naysayers speculated that McGregor would not be able to back up his talk on fight night and that the matchup would spell the end of the McGregor era.
However, the McGregor era was just beginning. McGregor more than delivered on fight night, knocking out Aldo in an astonishing 13 seconds. McGregor was crowned the featherweight champion; the way set for his superstardom.
McGregor then went on to win the lightweight belt against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205, making him the first two-division champion in UFC history.
In a somewhat ill-advised move, McGregor then decided to move from MMA to the boxing ring to faceoff against arguably the greatest of all time, Floyd Mayweather. McGregor was ultimately knocked out by Mayweather in the 10th round of the contest, but with the 130 million dollar payout, it was hard to say McGregor lost the fight. McGregor also used the hype generated by the prizefight to launch his own brand of whiskey called Proper No. Twelve, garnering the athlete even more millions. These financial moves earned him the fourth spot on the Forbes highest-earning athlete list, and also made him the highest paid mixed martial artist in the world.
The point could be made that it is here that McGregor’s career took a downward spiral. While he was off making millions fighting Mayweather, both of his belts were left unattended and many argued that McGregor’s focus was no longer on MMA competition. Despite the UFC’s love for its prize fighter, they couldn’t leave two divisions locked down. McGregor was therefore stripped of his featherweight title in 2016 and was given a fight against the Dagestani lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 in 2018.
The build-up to the McGregor v. Nurmagomedov contest was far darker than any MMA fans had seen previously. One of the members of McGregor’s gym, Artem Lobov, was competing on the early prelims on the same card Nurmagomedov was headlining and was confronted by Khabib and his team. The altercation turned violent, and Lobov was ultimately removed from the contest because of it. When McGregor found out, he immediately flew to New York and came to the Barclays Center where the event was being held. McGregor found a bus Khabib was on and proceeded to throw a steel dolly at the side of the vehicle, shattering the window and injuring several other fighters in the process. Multiple fights had to be canceled because of the event, and McGregor received criminal charges for disorderly conduct.
The press conference following the bus incident was equally eventful, with McGregor alleging that Khabib and his team had ties to terrorism and Russian president Vladimir Putin. Needless to say, the hype for this fight was insanely high.
Unlike in his previous match-ups, McGregor’s mind games did not pay off against Nurmagomedov. The Russian demolished McGregor throughout the first three rounds, and ultimately got the win via rear-naked choke in the fourth. The fighting was not over after the stoppage, however. Following McGregor’s tap, Nurmagomedov leapt out of the cage and began a massive brawl in the audience with McGregor’s teammates. The arena had to be evacuated, and it was clear McGregor’s career had taken a turn for the worse.
Following his devastating loss to Nurmagomedov, McGregor took time off to regroup and eventually came back to fight Donald Cerrone in 2020, winning by knockout in the first round. He then went on to fight Dustin Poirier and lost twice, shattering his leg in the second bout. Though the showmanship, trash-talk and bravado were still there — with McGregor even continuing to insult now retired Nurmagomedov on X, formerly known as Twitter —, McGregor seemed to have lost his edge in the ring. Coupled with his serious leg injury, it seemed like the McGregor era had finally reached an end.
This brings us to the present day. McGregor entered rehabilitation for his injury and remained firm on social media that he would return to the octagon with the goal to reclaim the lightweight belt. Over a year and a half ago, a bout between McGregor and Michael Chandler was announced. This fight has since been pushed back a multitude of times, and was ultimately canceled for an undisclosed reason. McGregor has been filmed partying and engaging in various illicit activities, clearly not taking his training seriously. It’s difficult to imagine a future in which he fights again, let alone reach the same level of success he once had.
Boxer Marvin Hagler once said, “It’s hard to do road work at 5 a.m. when you’re sleeping in silk pajamas.”
McGregor’s whole career was based on the idea of an Irishman coming from nothing and rising to unprecedented heights, but once those heights were reached, it was clear the drive was gone. Had McGregor retired after reaching double belt status, he would have undoubtedly been considered one of the greatest martial artists of all time. Now, his career has been tarnished by his inability to let go. McGregor will still go down in history, though not as a fighting legend but as a tumultuous icon defined by his personal errors rather than his athletic accomplishments.
