https://youtu.be/QqoGF2yztGU
While we have all heard the phrase “The Conor McGregor Show” by now, never before was an event more appropriately named than Friday’s “UFC: Go Big” launch event in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Interim UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor joined his opponent for UFC 194 in December, Jose Aldo, on a stage that also featured multiple UFC champions, and nearly every main event match scheduled through the end of 2015.
Any UFC fans who showed up looking forward to hearing about other fights besides the McGregor-Aldo bout, it’s a pretty safe bet to assume that they went home unsatisfied.
Several times throughout the mega media event on Friday, McGregor would interrupt other fighters as they were answering questions from members of the sports media.
Such fighters as Jose Aldo, Chad Mendes, Frankie Edgar, Joseph Duffy, Dustin Poirier, Rafael dos Anjos and Donald Cerrone were just a few of those who felt the wrath of “The Notorious” one.
Early on, McGregor focused on his next scheduled opponent, Jose Aldo, who he meets in the main event at UFC 194 in December to attempt to unify the UFC featherweight division. However, after a very heated pull-apart staredown between the two early into the press event, Aldo had to leave early to catch a flight.
Unfortunately for the rest of the fighters sitting on the panel, all this meant was that McGregor’s venom would now be aimed at them.
“I’ll tell everyone up here 145 right up to 170, prepare for this fight, because I don’t think he’s showing up,” McGregor said shortly after Aldo left to catch his flight. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime you have, and don’t use [Mendes’] excuse of camps and all this bullsh*t. Stay ready, because he’s gone running.”
Chad Mendes, a man who was stopped inside two rounds by McGregor back in July, still an “Alpha Male” (pun intended), couldn’t sit idly by while the mega-Irish star continued to rip into his fellow athletes. This led to “Money” Mendes speaking up, telling McGregor that if he had a full camp to prepare for their fight, he would beat him every single time.
McGregor, of course, wasn’t buying it.
“You were curled up like a b*tch,” McGregor said of his TKO of Mendes at UFC 189. “I butchered your body. You couldn’t even put your hands up.”
If that wasn’t enough, McGregor then turned his attention to the 155-pound division, as he has made it clear in the past that he intends to move up to the lightweight ranks to conquer that weight class after he’s done cleaning out the featherweight division with a potential victory over Aldo.
Oh yeah, and McGregor made sure to remind said-lightweights that he could make each and every one of them rich if they were to “man-up” and sign the dotted line to fight him.
