Until this weekend, I wouldn’t have considered myself a Conor McGregor fan.
Yes, I liked him. Yes, I enjoyed the bravado and antics. Yes, I’m the Editor of JOE.ie, so y’know, he’s been good for the business.
But to be a fan of a team, a sportsperson, anything really, requires an emotional connection.
My feeling after each of his string of UFC victories was a mild pleasure in seeing a fellow Irishman do well. Something akin to when the Irish cricket team beats someone they shouldn’t.
I had never previously connected to him like I do the Irish football team or, God help me, Leitrim GAA!
Human and humble
In short, I didn’t think a McGregor defeat would bother me.
But on Sunday morning as his brief, post-fight interview with Joe Rogan concluded that emotional connection arrived.
Here was a very human and humble Irishman who had the balls to try something and came up short.
Humble in victory, humble in defeat #UFC196 https://t.co/XKGQ7aE0BV
— UFC (@ufc) March 6, 2016
Seismic shock
If a man’s true character is revealed in defeat, McGregor’s immediate interview reaction to his unexpected defeat (and given his behaviour in the build-up to this fight, there was no more seismic shock than in his own mind) was when many floating voters became ‘The Notorious’ fans.
It was the moment where everything McGregor preached about himself was put under the microscope and where his class as an athlete, and a man, shone through.
Humility is currency
Many Irish people love him simply because he has been (until Sunday anyway) really good at winning. There are plenty more that find McGregor’s swagger hard to swallow but humility is a currency that everyone accepts.
It wasn’t a one-off either.
Soon after the official press conference, where he once again manfully accepted his defeat, he was posing for pictures with his fans.
Where many would have gone for a darkened room to lick their wounds, McGregor chose to mingle with the people who had travelled in their droves to Las Vegas to watch him compete.
It was another classy gesture.
Schadenfreude
In the immediate aftermath of his defeat there was a cathartic outpouring of schadenfreude from people who watch his fights expressly to see him lose.
The American shock-jock Howard Stern once did audience research that indicated that the people who identified as his fans listened on average for 15 minutes.
People who identified as detesting his show listened on average for 20 minutes.
Like Stern’s hate-filled listeners, these kind of people are not bad for business. They pay their PPV money the same as the people who support Conor McGregor, even if their motivations differ.
Their outpouring of delight at his defeat is not incomprehensible, neither will it bother McGregor.
Howard Stern
What Howard Stern and Conor McGregor have in common, is that they understand the people who profess to hate them even better than they understand those that hang on their every word.
McGregor’s every pre-fight utterance is designed to do one thing – hype the show and sell tickets.
Given the size of his most recent UFC contract, he’s the greatest they’ve ever had at doing just that.
For the haters, McGregor’s acts of humility in defeat may not lessen their ire for the man, but maybe that is not what he wants either.
In his own words – “f**k the hate that came out of the woodwork”.
A Way with Words
To dismiss McGregor as a loudmouth is foolish. He has a way with words. Like his left hand, they are efficient in how they connect.
Once he had put his humility and acceptance of the defeat on the record, it was time for those words to go to work.
Instagram is where he talks directly to his fanbase without media filter.
His first, post-fight utterance was an eloquent and honest statement of intent, that his fans (old and new) expected and hoped for.
Swagger
The swagger is already back.
It’s what divides opinion and sells tickets to such devastating effect.
It’s what has made him, at once, a global sporting and social phenomenon.
It’s what encourages the fans to part with their hard-earned wages to follow this showman half-way around the world, time after time.
It’s what, deep down, both the fans and the detractors want to hear.
But that’s something that McGregor has never had any trouble understanding.
Conor, we will see you again.
