You want to come at the king, you better be prepared.
It’s not personal for Conor McGregor. It’s not.
He doesn’t seem like the sort of fella who wants to waste his time being hung up on what he said and what she thought. He doesn’t seem like the sort of fella who gets hung up on anything. He breaks a record, he moves onto the next one.
Probably one time in his UFC career has Conor McGregor broken character. The TMZ reporter who put the Dubliner in a difficult position asking him if he’d beat Jesus in a fight had the stones to come at him later and question if one of the fighter’s comments were “racially motivated.”
McGregor let him have it and he didn’t need wit or any sort of bravado to express his feelings either.
Remember that @TMZ reporter that asked Conor McGregor about Jesus?
Well, Conor met him again
Here's how that went pic.twitter.com/UBRuwUdCeT
— MMA History Today (@MMAHistoryToday) February 25, 2016
You watch his rise through the UFC ranks though and you genuinely wonder if there is much need for a character for him anymore.
He made history by dismantling one of the greatest of all time down to 13 seconds of work and he’s moved up through the divisions, faced adversity, faced weight and broke every company record there was to break on the way.
Now he’s just looking for more. Eddie Alvarez has a belt and he wants it. He wants to take that and then move onto the next challenge. That’s why he genuinely couldn’t give two monkeys about what Jeremy bloody Stephens has to say.
Stephens is out of his depth in this company. For most of a 14-minute Q&A session on The LAD Bible, ‘The Notorious’ barely breathed the two syllables that make up Alvarez’s first name so he was hardly going to give Jeremy a second thought.
He wouldn’t even say Eddie. No. Instead, it was “his next opponent”, it was “my opponent”, it was the “next fight”.
These guys are just obstacles so McGregor doesn’t even see it as psychological warfare or any of that nonsense.
“This is the fight business,” he said in the interview. “I’m not going out thinking ‘psychological warfare’.
“That last press conference, I wanted to go out a little different even. I walked in happy, positivity, I am set for life. I am set for life. My family will never go hungry. So I was just wanting to go up and enjoy it.
“And then they try and come at me, the whole lot of them. If you want to come at me, if you want to come at the king, you better be prepared because the king will come and take you out.
“It’s all fair in this business. Anything goes in this game. It’s a ruthless business and I am the most ruthless.”
In the Octagon, he’s shown himself to be ruthless too. Two monumental scraps with Nate Diaz have preceded UFC 205 and the fireworks fight fans can expect in New York on November 12. Well, New York or what McGregor calls his “home turf”.
That preparation with Diaz though has made his training for his “next opponent” even easier.
“The last fight, I trained very specific: Six foot plus, southpaws, in the middleweight to light heavyweight range, that’s who I trained with for the last contest. For this one, we’ve gone back to 5’7” stocky, stuffed wrestlers with mediocre boxing – that’s the opponent I’m going up against but we’ve got solid boxers, we’ve got solid wrestlers.
“That is a body type that is very easily found. I’ve been facing this opponent, the body styles, the attacks, I’ve been facing that my whole life.
“It’s easy. It’s a lot better for me. It’s handy. There’s a million training partners that replicate this next opponent’s style.
Mystic Mac already predicted a first round knockout back in the press conference. He’s been able to break the fight down a little more since then.
“I don’t think he (Alvarez or “next opponent”) poses any threat. He’s a tough kid. He’s got some good fights under his belt, good experience and I’m expecting him to come in and fight with his heart.
“But I don’t see it going well for him. I feel he will be unconscious.”
On the latest episode of the GAA Hour, Wooly chats to new Meath boss Andy McEntee about the flawed Dublin Championship and catches up with new Clare joint manager Donal Moloney. Listen below or subscribe on iTunes.
