‘The blueprint is kind of set for Conor to have his own set of rules.’ – Tyron Woodley
Conor McGregor’s representatives are calling the shots.
We have not had a UFC card that has topped the 1-million pay-per-view mark in 2017. UFC 214 [Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier] did an estimated 860,000 PPV buys while UFC 217 [Michael Bisping vs. Geores St-Pierre] came closer still to that 1m mark [970,000].
And still, UFC president Dana White has claimed the promotion has enjoyed all-time record numbers and profits this year. The main reason? Conor McGregor.
‘The Notorious’ has not competed in the UFC since November 2016 but his foray into professional boxing – losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr. back in August – took in a rake of cash for all involved. And the UFC was very much involved.
McGregor is the single biggest money fight in the history of the sport. He is a mainstream media star too and generates a slew of free publicity [sometimes good, sometimes bad but publicity all the same] for the UFC.
This is why many expect McGregor to get no more than a telling off for his cage-invading antics and clashes with officials at Bellator Dublin, last month. There had been talk of McGregor being pulled from the year-ending UFC 219 card in Las Vegas but the Dubliner’s management team denied this was the case.
McGregor should return in Spring 2018 and, according to UFC welterweight champion and FOX Sports pundit Tyron Woodley, he has a very specific demand about his comeback fights. Woodley told MMAjunkie Radio:
“From what I hear, if he’s on the card, he doesn’t want any pay-per-view grossing fighters on the card with him.
“Because he doesn’t want to feed us any more, which I can respect. The dude is the draw. You can hate all you want, but he’s the draw. He’s that dude right now.”
Woodley says the promotion have opened up the door for McGregor to ‘do whatever the hell he wants’ and he does not expect it to change.
It would be a shame if the UFC gave in to this demand, though. A couple of McGregor-headlined events, particularly UFC’s 189 and 205, have been up there with the best of all time. Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald brought all-out war to UFC 189 while UFC 205 and three title fights on a stacked, enjoyable card [Khabib Nurmagomedov was on the prelims!].
If the reported demand of McGregor’s team was met, it would mean his headliner would be the only title fight and there would be no big-name, established stars on the undercard.
The UFC would expect McGregor to top a million PPV buys on his own, though, so it may be worth the precedent-setting gamble. Most fight fans would grumble if the rest of the card was not great but they would likely tune in.
As for Woodley, he can understand the logic of the lightweight champion. “The people that are going to watch me are going to watch Conor,” he commented.
“There are people that watch Conor that might not watch me. So I can see where he’s coming from, in basically feeding us to get pay-per-view. I really don’t have an issue with that.”
