After an 11-month layoff from action, Conor McGregor returned at UFC Fight Night 46 with a bang — but is the Irish native really the next big thing?
The crowd in Ireland was deafening and McGregor had them on their feet the entire four-minutes and five-seconds that he was inside the Octagon. The main event bout against Diego Brandao started and finished quickly. “The Notorious” took to the center of the cage and immediately threw a spinning back kick. For the first couple of minutes it felt like we were watching something right out of EA Sports UFC, as McGregor was throwing spinning stuff, flashy punches and everything else but the kitchen sink. The Brazilian was able to get the fight to the mat, but McGregor reversed mid-air and wound up on top. He threw punches and elbows and when Brandao finally made it back to his feet, McGregor landed a straight left that sealed the deal.
In his post-fight speech, the 26-year-old stated, “I said I would put him away in the first round; I put him away in the first round.” Those were strong words coming into a bout of such magnitude in front of your hometown crowd. These seem to be the only type of statements McGregor makes.
For someone who has been out of the mix for so long, he has sure been a presence. While out he had a number of fighters call him out and also had UFC President Dana White praise him on a number of occasions.
It’s amazing that a guy who fought Marcus Brimage in his UFC debut on Facebook and Max Holloway in his sophomore bout on the FOX Sports 1 prelims has such a following. Could it be his brash talk? That definitely helped for Chael Sonnen.
McGregor said that with a victory at the O2 Arena, he would like a title shot — that is highly unlikely with Jose Aldo out of action and Chad Mendes his opponent next. So the fact that the SBG Ireland fighter wants to stay active, a bout with Dustin Poirier, who called him out both before and after his fight would make the most sense.
“The Notorious” has not only improved to 3-0 inside the UFC, but also has raised his stock in popularity by much more than that. Judging by my Twitter timeline leading up to this fight, a lot of people have turned into huge Conor McGregor fans.
One big issue is, can McGregor connect with the North American audience the same way he did with his home crowd? We’ve seen other international stars turn into superstars once they hit the United States, such as Wanderlei Silva and Anderson Silva. However it can also go the other way, where a fighter has a huge fan base in their home country and it just doesn’t translate to the American audience, insert Yoshihiro Akiyama.
For anyone to really make it, they must be known in the United States. Not only is this the hub for mixed martial arts and more specifically the UFC, but for anything to have “arrived” on the world’s stage it’s got to be big in the US of A. Look at television shows, for example no one knew of the British show Pop Idol, until Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell brought it to the States and renamed it American Idol.
So has he really become the next big thing? If he hasn’t just yet globally, the Conor McGregor train is rolling through and you are definitely likely to jump aboard.
