Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports
Conor McGregor talks about his previous misdemeanors and how he says he bounced back from them.
2019 was a tumultuous year for Conor McGregor, in terms of his life outside the Octagon. From strong-arm robbery and assault charges to sexual assault allegations, “The Notorious” did live up to his nickname.
While McGregor already denied the sexual assault claims, he did admit that he might have been drifted towards the wrong path in his fame, similar to how Mike Tyson did during the height of his heavyweight boxing career.
“Now here’s the thing: Yeah, definitely Mike Tyson has had his ups and his downs, and his money management has kind of led him to be in a position he shouldn’t have really been in,” McGregor told SevereMMA (via MMA Junkie). “But if you look at Mike now, he’s got his money, he’s got his weed thing going, he’s well for himself.
“But, yeah, I don’t want to go down that path,” he continued. “I didn’t want to go down that path, and maybe I was heading down that path a little bit, so just listening to myself, listening to the close people around me that I respect, and just making amends with things.”
McGregor says he learned from all those mistakes, expressing confidence in the changes he went through to become a better individual, overall.
“I know what I need to do. I knew what I needed to do and what I shouldn’t have been doing,” he said. “I just listened to myself and followed my orders, and it’s just made me a better individual, just a better man. I’m just in a much better place.”
McGregor will return from a 15-month absence to fight Donald Cerrone this weekend at UFC 246 in Las Vegas.