Muhammad Ali used to torment his opponents and get under their skin. According to White, McGregor does it just as well in the MMA world.
Dana White believes Conor McGregor is right up there with Muhammad Ali when it comes to mental warfare. And considering the mental warfare “The Notorious” and UFC are putting fans through right now, we agree.
We’re four days into a strange news blackout on McGregor’s UFC 303 fight as the Mac appears to be in the middle of assessing the severity of an injury he’s suffered in training. We don’t know for sure because the UFC isn’t telling us what’s up, and neither is Conor past a few cryptic tweets.
How serious is this injury? Is McGregor on the edge of pulling out? Or are we at a point where the show will go on, but Conor is engaged in head games to mess with his opponent Michael Chandler?
It’s fun to imagine this is all part of a masterful game of mental warfare — all this ‘UFC 303 in jeopardy’ stuff and McGregor’s recent late night partying schedule. It’s certainly less depressing than the alternative. So of course that’s how Dana White is spinning the partying.
In an episode of Flagrant filmed before Conor pulled out of the Dublin presser, UFC CEO Dana White suggested McGregor could be playing everyone with his head games.
“I don’t ever like to compare people to Muhammad Ali, cuz to me, he’s the f—ing [man],” White said (via MiddleEasy). “And f— what he did in fighting, just as a human, what that guy accomplished, right? But, I don’t give a f— what anybody says. Ali, Conor, [same] level when it comes to mental warfare, really the two best of all time when it comes to mental warfare.”
“If you look back at Ali and you look at what he did to George Foreman in Africa, you look at what he did to Joe Frazier… Joe Frazier f—ing hated Muhammad Ali so f—ing badly. He’d show up at his camp outside and f—ing do all this s—. He would predict rounds. He would come up with f—ing incredible poems and sayings and things that he would do leading up to the fight.”
“Then, you look at Conor McGregor,” White continued. “He’s picked rounds. I mean, the mental warfare that this guy had on so many of his opponents. And he would make these guys play into his game, get into their heads, f—ing embarrass them, and outwit them in every way, shape and form. The Eddie Alvarez fight going into Madison Square Garden, he is literally at Ali’s level when it came to mental warfare.”
McGregor has only fought four times in MMA since beating Eddie Alvarez in 2016, so it’s hard for some to remember what he did back in the early days. But White is telling the truth here: “The Notorious” would get into the head of everyone he fought.
He made Jose Aldo so mad the Brazilian legend charged in got knocked out 13 seconds into their long-awaited title fight. Dustin Poirier revealed Mac got under his skin in their first bout, leading to a first round KO. And Donald Cerrone admitted the scale of a McGregor fight did his head in.
These days the tools McGregor used are being deployed on the regular by other fighters, so it’s not as easy to shake people as it once was. McGregor’s over-the-top attempts to enrage Dustin Poirier coming into their third fight didn’t really work out. And Michael Chandler seems ready to bring the fight no matter how many Instagram videos Mac posts at the club.
Perhaps we are the ones Conor McGregor is playing head games with. Lots of sports fans have been calling the Irish sports star a washed up party animal since he lost to Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018. Now he’s playing things up just so he can smash expectations at UFC 303. See, isn’t that possibility way more fun than the alternatives?