He’s fighting Cerrone, he’s fighting Holloway, he’s fighting phones and needs to work on that elusive virtue of patience. Is Conor McGregor really saying much at all?
Like many a self-promoter, Conor McGregor is excellent at keeping himself in the news. Not always for the right reasons, mind you. Whether it be a one round battle with a bus or a TKO of a cell phone, many of McGregor’s recent battles have been against the most puzzling of opponents. Yet when ‘Mystic Mac’ speaks, the MMA world listens, usually waiting with bated breath to hear when he might return to the cage.
It would come against Donald Cerrone, he hinted, right up until that apparently fell off the table. Now, he’s engaging in a feud with Max Holloway, who he has mostly been respectful to up until this point. Oh, and talking about a July return.
“We’re currently in negotiations, we’re aiming for July, we’ll see what happens,” McGregor told ABC over the weekend, while taking part in Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Allegedly, no phones were harmed at the event. “I am staying ready. This morning I was doing incline sprints on the treadmill on my program, the McGregorFast program, in a hotel room. So we’re staying on it, getting work in as we go.”
Sounds more like a sales pitch for McGregorFast, coming soon to an infomercial near you. The thing about all this is, McGregor is suddenly saying a lot without saying anything. He also spoke up to add some words in support of Tony Ferguson, a fighter going through some scary mental health issues. Which is great, in the sense that it adds something positive. But realistically, all McGregor is doing is yelling “I’m still here!”
The reality is, McGregor is currently suspended, and seems to have his hands tied thanks to all sorts of extracurricular activities, which is why, though his suspension is up in April, he’s talking about a July return. Oh, and July? No doubt that would be International Fight Week, a.k.a. the UFC’s crown jewel. The most disinterested of MMA fans could have guessed that would be his return date.
Holloway? There’s a question whether he’d be ready by then, depending on how Holloway vs. Porier 2 goes next month. There’s also a question about McGregor’s latest legal issues, though a smashed phone is the type of celebrity incident that gets washed away with the promise of good behavior and some community service.
Now where have we heard that before?
Perhaps we all need to work on learning some patience, a virtue McGregor admittedly struggles with. Yet at this point, the only word on the notorious former champ we really want to hear is an announcement — not by himself, but by the UFC, involving an official opponent and date.
The rest is pretty much just a circus barker act at this point.
