This may be shocking to hear, but Bill Burr didn’t get offended by the post-fight abuse hurled at Dustin Poirier by Conor McGregor.
Conor McGregor draws a ton of attention every time he fights. Just look at the celebrity list Dana White was juggling coming into McGregor’s sold-out return to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. UFC’s president had a “Billionaire’s Row” set up for super VIPs. Former president of the United States, Donald Trump, even showed up (but didn’t make the broadcast, whomp).
Everyone cares when Conor McGregor fights … my parents care. And so does stand-up comedian Bill Burr, who had his own thoughts on how the third showdown between McGregor and Dustin Poirier went at UFC 264 (watch highlights).
“It sucks the way it ended,” Burr said on his podcast. “I was rooting for Conor McGregor. I hate when an older — he’s only 32 — but when an older great fighter loses, I hate that thing where all these people on Twitter who haven’t had a fight since junior high like me start ‘Nyeah, you got your f—king ass kicked’ or something like that.
“Certain people, certain announcers, they enjoy when the champ gets knocked off their throne because a lot of people can’t handle how bad ass — and that’s the most bad ass thing ever, man or woman, to walk into an arena to fight, and to come out victorious? I don’t care what anyone in the crowd did, nobody is cooler than that. You gotta go to someone who’s a war hero to beat that.
“I wanted to see that second round to see what would have happened,” he continued. “Everybody seems to know what was going to happen, whatever. But ‘Oh Conor was coming back’ or ‘Dustin would have knocked him out.’ We don’t know now. I felt bad for Conor when he was sitting there. I know he was yelling all sorts of f—ked up s—t at Dustin but it was just like … I don’t know what that’s like.”
“I can be a comedian til I keel over, but these guys have a window, and it must feel as great for them as it does for me to do what I do. And I can’t imagine if my whole standup career was over at 32 and what am I going to do? So I think he was kind of in that headspace. And I think he was still trying to sell the next fight.
“Jesus Christ, ‘Your wife is in my DMs,’ Jesus. And Dustin saying he’s a dirtbag. They usually say all sorts of crazy s—t and then afterward they’re so nice. This is the only time I can remember where it sounded like pre-fight hype and then…. I like the people who are going, ‘He went too far, don’t say things about his wife.’ What are you talking about? They say all sorts of crazy things. ‘Oh, he said he was going to murder me.’ It’s like pffft.
“He didn’t say he was going to eat his children. He didn’t say, ‘I’m going to f—k you until you love me.’ There’s a lot more crazy s—t than that. He’s selling the fight and he’s Conor McGregor and if you fight him you make—”
And at that point his podcast recorder shuts down, and when he comes back he goes on a tangent about bears. But don’t worry. Not only has this YouTube account clipped Bill Burr’s thoughts on McGregor’s UFC 264 performance, he has a 35-minute video featuring Burr talking about Conor McGregor’s career from the Chad Mendes fight onward.
You get to listen to Burr develop from a know nothing casual to a confidently clueless casual over five years. Good stuff.