Conor McGregor: ‘It’s been a great journey from Crumlin’

When asked to cast his mind back to the last time he took part in a competitive boxing match, all Conor McGregor can do is glance skywards and let out a long exhale of breath. It has been so long for him that he can’t even remember.

“It would have been out the back of the National Stadium or maybe in Crumlin boxing club,” he says eventually.

After weeks and months of bluster and bravado, the martial artist from Dublin is suddenly excited to be talking about real fighting again.

“I don’t remember the last one I had,” he continues. “I would like to go back and think about it actually.

“But every Thursday they used to have this club show and other clubs would come to the gym. The referee was in his full kit, like.

“There wasn’t even a weigh-in for them. You would roll in and see what other clubs had come.

“The coach, Phil Sutcliffe, would pick someone and say ‘you’re going to face him’.

“There was always the joke that Phil was going to put you in with light-heavyweights even though you were only 60kg. ‘Off you go kid, you’re going to fight him’.

“That was the way I was brought into the game.”

McGregor’s reintroduction to that same game tonight, nearly 15 years on, could not represent a more dramatic contrast.

At the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, McGregor will finally make his professional boxing debut and realise the dream of that kid back in Crumlin. The cheapest ticket will cost you $500 (€420).

The notion that a no-bouter should be allowed to make his debut in what has been described as the biggest combat sports event in history, against the brilliance of Floyd Mayweather, has been laughed at and vilified in equal measure.

The consensus is that a man whose only boxing experience came during contests that did not even require a weigh-in can not possibly win.

But the fact of the matter is that McGregor has won already.

Depending on how many people part with their hard-earned cash to watch it, McGregor stands to bank as much as €100m for his role in the circus.

What’s more, his profile has gone supersonic during the promotion, with millions of new eyes exposed to the cartoon persona already so beloved by UFC fans.

Say what you like about the contest, but at the heart of it, two men are stripping down to the waist and having a fight in the middle of the Nevada desert. Nobody has been forced to watch it and the duo in question would not be doing it if nobody cared.

Las Vegas has actually been strangely subdued this week, the bars and casinos relatively quiet and interest levels, on the ground at least, do not seem as high as they used to when Mayweather fought before his two-year retirement.

But millions across the planet will tune in more through curiosity than anything else to see what this bombastic Dubliner, without a single second of professional boxing experience to call upon, is actually going to do when the ring clears.

Many boxing purists have recoiled so badly at the thought of this fight because, in reality, a mirror is being held up to their sport, and the reflection is not pretty.

Mayweather is the embodiment of all this promotion represents and is still the biggest draw in boxing despite two years in retirement.

The genuine superfight

earlier this year between

arguably the two best fighters in the world, Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev, drew around one tenth of what ‘Maymac’ will do on pay-per-view. Painful as it might be to admit it, the circus is winning.

Another viewpoint, put forward by the editor of Boxing News, is that it is dangerous and reckless to allow such an obvious mismatch to take place at all. Mayweather has beaten just about every elite fighter in and around his weight class for the past 20 years so any debutant in his path stands to get seriously hurt.

The whole sport is based around levels, moving through them, and eventually reaching the top. It’s the same reason why Namibia would not be allowed to face Brazil in the World Cup final without reaching it legitimately. It just isn’t sport.

But then boxing has always blurred the lines between sport, business, and something altogether more disturbing. The essence of it is still to strike your opponent in such a way that his or her body can no longer function. Boxing does not sit well on a high horse.

Tonight will undoubtedly open the gates for more cross-sport fights with other martial artists hoping to cash in on the lucrative contests that boxing can offer.

Meanwhile, McGregor’s part in the freak show will shine a light on MMA, which should attract more fans to what is already the fastest growing sport on the planet.

“Do you know how many times people ask me ‘can you believe it?’ Well I did and it has happened,” says McGregor, when asked to reflect on his rise to superstardom.

“I certainly pinch myself sometimes and I’m grateful. But disbelief? No. I always believed it and I always will. That’s why it’s here.

McGregor’s journey to Vegas, he insists, has been built on hard work and not talent, and it is impossible not to admire the way in which he has changed life for himself and his young family.

Much less feted boxers and mixed martial artists will get up on Monday and plough a similar furrow in the hope of gleaning similar riches at some point down the line.

“It was not that long ago I was training to be a plumber,” adds McGregor. “It’s been a great journey from Crumlin I can tell you. I’m happy and young, man.”