Escobar T-shirt selfie
McGregor tweets a selfie wearing a T-shirt that has a mugshot of Escobar on it.
Twins
Twins pic.twitter.com/B3YUK30Eub
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) August 31, 2016
Wants to buy $2m watch
McGregor says he wants to buy a $2 million Richard Milles watch to add to his collection. Mille’s RM 056 costs $1.65 million, while the RM 56-02 Tourbillon Sapphire is $2 million.
I have a nice collection now. I have some Audemars. I have some Hublots. I have some Rolexes. I’ve been looking at Richard Milles. They’re a big purchase, the Richard Milles, so I’m not going to jump into it. I have the 50-year anniversary Rolex with the green face. It’s a beautiful piece. I was looking around to see if Lorenzo (UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta) has the same watch as me; I think he was copying me. Every time I see him, he has a new watch. I took a picture of the money-green Rolex and he said, ‘That’s my new favourite.’ And then at UFC 200 he shows up, ‘Hey look,’ and he had the same watch as me…Watches have always been something that just appeal to me. There’s something about having a really nice, quality watch on your wrist. Especially on my left wrist. When I feel the weight of it, I feel like… it takes you back to the caveman days, when you’d kill an animal and you would take something and put it around your neck as a symbol of what we have done. ‘We have conquered this.’ When I have won a big fight and collect a big check, I’ll purchase a beautiful watch and I’ll put it on my left hand. My left hand that I have cracked on my opponent. That hand has got me my fill. It feels like I’ve earned it.
Henry disses Kavanagh
In reply to a screenshot of an article where Kavanagh said he’d prefer for McGregor to go to 155lb and fight Alvarez for the lightweight championship, and in addition predicted a second round knockout, Henry says:
John Kavanagh, for a jiu-jitsu coach who can’t event teach his student Conor McGregor how to tie his belt and just got subbed quick you have a lot to say. PS give the proceeds of your book to the striking coach, he deserves it.
Kavanagh responds:
it won't. I'll focus on my fighter. I'm not a fighter and I'm not interested in headlines, I'm just a coach doing my best.
— Coach JK (@John_Kavanagh) August 30, 2016
Diaz: Immediate McGregor rematch unlikely
Speaking to Sonnen on his podcast, Diaz says he doesn’t expect an immediate rematch.
I don’t know [what’s going on behind the scenes]. Remember last time they rushed to his house the next morning and said he was all obsessed or whatever? I was pretty crazy about it for a couple of days, but it’s whatever to me, you know? I won that fight and I’m not like jumping for joy already for round three. I think I beat him twice, so it’s 2-0 as far as I’m concerned. If they want to do it down the road, I don’t know – I’m not in a hurry. I believe they know too, because he’s got a smart coach on his hands. Him and his coach know what happened in the fight and they’re not stupid, so I think they are going to do what they can to return to his division and get onto a new stage.
Open to McGregor boxing match
Alvarez says he is open to meeting McGregor is the boxing ring, and criticises his comments about boxers.
I’ve been fighting the best since I was 23, since a very young age, that’s the last thing he could ever speak about me or say about me, but I understand, there’s people out there that like to talk nonsense and stupidity. If he wants to try out boxing, then anytime he wants. If he wants to come over to this side of the world and try boxing, anytime he wants, to see that it’s not as easy as he thinks,
McGregor ‘can be in peak form by UFC 205’
Dalby talks about McGregor’s training and recovery.
The basic problem with Conor is that he is a man obsessed. If he is left to his own devices, he will self-destruct. He will train himself into oblivion. And that’s what he had been doing in the past. He had been over-training to the point that he would make himself ill and then he would take time off…The end justifies it all. The fact is, he went a hard, hard five rounds and he won at the end of the five rounds…The man is capable of going a hard 29 minutes. His fitness level is exceptional now. You can see how quickly he can recover in the one minute between rounds, he comes back up fresh again [at the beginning of each new round]…He can be in peak form for November. There are a lot of variables there. I mean it’s up to what Dana White wants him to do, it’s up to whether any of the other contenders want the fight. But from a medical standpoint, there is absolutely no reason why he can’t fight in November. It’s more down to the logistics of it, from the UFC and the other fighters, nothing to do with his health or conditioning…I would like to see him fight [Jose] Aldo. There is some unfinished business that’s going on there.
2nd in LA Times MMA power rankings
McGregor is ranked second in the LA Times ranking of the top ten power rankings. Daniel Cormier takes the top spot.
McGregor’s laser-focused ability to win a fight 25 pounds above his normal weight class moves him closer to the top of The Times’ MMA power rankings…After defeating Nate Diaz, McGregor left the arena wanting his next fight to be his own choice. He’s hoping to become the UFC’s first-ever simultaneous two-belt champion, so lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez seems his favored opponent.
Will star in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
Activision announces that McGregor will star in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
It was an honour to team up with the juggernaut Call of Duty franchise on this amazing, mind blowing new project they are about to unleash on the gaming world! Prepare to be blown away!
Teases Mac Life Training System
In a Twitter post, McGregor teases the Mac Life training system.
With the Mac Life training system I am going to change your life. #ComingSoon pic.twitter.com/dyprAIAw4Q
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) September 3, 2016
Bisping: Alvarez would kill McGregor
Bisping says that McGregor cannot beat Alvarez at 155 pounds, disagreeing with John Kavanagh, who has said McGregor would beat Alvarez inside two rounds.
I think looking at that last fight, he does not want to fight Eddie Alvarez at 155. I think Alvarez kills him man. He’ll just take him down and destroy him. I’m not saying that to be mean, I just think stylistically…I like Conor. Conor is incredible, he’s done amazing things for this sport. He’s brought so many eyes on to it, he’s making so much money and he’s exciting as hell. He brings excitement.
Accurate fight simulations key to win
Kavanagh says McGregor’s UFC 202 training not only used training partners capable of mimicking Diaz inside the cage on MMA sparring day, they also attempted to mimic fight day conditions in every other possible way.
We made sure that we did a lot of very accurate fight simulations. On our MMA sparring day, we really treated it the exact same as fight day. What he was going to eat on fight day, how he was going to rest – we mimicked it perfectly. We left the house at the same time he was going to leave the house for fight day. One of the guys that we brought in as a sparring partner, they didn’t hang out together, they didn’t become friends, they didn’t chat to each other. And when they would go into the gym, they would get changed in a different room and they wouldn’t talk to each other until they were actually sparring. And then, as sort of a stroke of luck, this particular guy we got, he actually liked to do some shit-talking.
Talks about helping McGregor train
Wallace talks about training with McGregor, taking the place of Nate Diaz in sparring sessions.
I couldn’t believe it when I heard at the time. I thought he [Conor McGregor] was joking, then I rang Mick [Michael Conlan] straight away and asked him if he was winding me up. But when I found out it wasn’t a joke I replied back to tell him I’d be delighted to go…We mainly did two sessions a day, it was well structured and I was mainly used on the boxing days…I’m a lot sharper than Diaz, it’s plain to be seen. He’s slow and sluggish but it’s his fitness and toughness that wins him a lot of his fights. But I watched a lot of his footage, his big long one-two and a kind of slap hook catching as the opponent comes in. I tried to mimic him the best I could to help McGregor deal with it…[Conor] couldn’t thank us enough for the work that we had done. Because when people were watching the fight, it was more like a boxing match rather than MMA.
‘A lot of feelings were hurt’ by McGregor’s insults
On a UFC 203 media conference call CM Punk says that, while he doesn’t care what McGregor said, it hurt other WWE wrestler’s feelings.
A lot of feelings were hurt, though, I can tell you that much, which I thought was a little strange. You’ve gotta leave the emotion out of it. These guys still don’t know…It’s a hard thing to comment on, because the amount of people who responded to him made me feel like they were told to respond to him. [McGregor is] the biggest name in sports at the moment. There’s always grey areas when you involve that whole scene and you’re wondering, is this a work, is this not a work?
Diaz coach: UFC 202 scoring rigged for trilogy
Diaz’s boxing coach says he scored the last three rounds to Diaz, and accuses the judges of prioritising a third money-spinning fight over objective judging.
If Nate wasn’t injured, McGregor would’ve got stopped. If it went another 30 seconds, Nate would’ve tapped him out because Conor was ready to go anyway. [Nate] was in good shape before the second fight, but the knee set him back along with the rib. He couldn’t train for the last three weeks. Nate couldn’t back out because he’d be sidelined and they’d have gave someone else the chance like they did with Dos Anjos…You can’t win a round by running. He was just looking at the clock. I knew that they were going to give that second round to McGregor, and the fight itself because I figure they wanted a third fight. A company just bought it out – they want to make more money. A lot of people know that he didn’t win that fight.
McGregor is ‘a lie’
Alvarez says that he believes that McGregor would represent a break in the quality of his opponents.
In a sparring room, there is always a guy that we call ‘the rest round. [McGregor] is the rest round. He is the guy you grab when you are super tired and you say ‘Come on man, lets do a round’. To me, to the level of guys that I compete with, to the the level of guys that I’ve fought in my life, and the level of guys I train with every day. He comes to our gym and trains – he is the rest round. For everyone, not just me. For Frankie[Edgar], for Edson[Barboza], for Marlon[Moraes], for any one of us…I was impressed by the first seven minutes. Then it all looked really sloppy and didn’t look of championship calibre. It didn’t look like a guy who spent $300,000 on a training camp. I could have done that shit for like $5.
Past the eight minute mark, I don’t see anything but than being dominant. He can do well because it’s easy to be technical in the first round or two, but when the shit hits the fan and it turns into a fight – I will f-cking dominate this guy every step of the way. When he is a little bit tired and he has to dig down – it’s over. It’s all over…There is no Santa Clause – he don’t exist. It was a lie and I’m going to steal the magic from everyone. The magic is going to be gone. And I can’t wait. It’s going to be a great time for me.
UFC 202 Fight Week video
The Mac Life releases a video of McGregor during fight week, from the pre-fight press conference to after the weigh-ins.
‘I’m gonna blow up Call of Duty’
McGregor is interviewed about Call of Duty.
We’re gonna break the record this year with Call of Duty…Of course I’m a fan..I’m in the new game!
Report: Turns down movie offer for Alvarez MSG fight
According to TalkMMA, McGregor is in negotiations to fight Alvarez at Madison Square Garden in November at UFC 205. TalkMMA says the main issue is that McGregor does not want to give up his title. He also reports that McGregor has already given up a movie role to commit to the fight.
Per my source: The biggest negotiation point for McGregor/Alvarez is McGregor wanting to hold onto his FW title. Defend it early next year.
— #Dizz (@TalkMMA) September 7, 2016
Also, to my understanding McGregor turned down a movie role to fight Alvarez at MSG
— #Dizz (@TalkMMA) September 7, 2016
UFC 202 broke PPV records
Sources say that the DirecTV numbers for UFC 202 were the highest in the promotion’s history. Current estimates have the show doing 1.65 million buys on pay-per-view, putting it slightly ahead of UFC 196, the first McGregor vs. Diaz fight, which was estimated at 1.6 million. Both would be ahead of the prior record set at UFC 100 for the second Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir fight UFC’s own pay-per-view orders through the Internet were believed to have also broken the record set at UFC 196. On the night, the show sold 12,657 tickets, and including late discounting, and there were 14,060 in the building. The live gate announced the night of the show was $7,629,010.
My numbers don't lie. https://t.co/xTatIEpuct
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) September 7, 2016
Post UFC 202 pool party video
The Mac Life releases a video of the party McGregor hosted at The Encore Beach Club, Las Vegas, on the day after his UFC 202 win.
