Sport

From the very start Conor McGregor was telling us and showing us who he was

There was something inevitable about the eventual fall of a braggart who seemed to personify a noxious mixture of violence, racism and sexism

Conor McGregor outside the High Court in Dublin. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA
Conor McGregor outside the High Court in Dublin. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA
Jonathan Liew
Thu Nov 28 2024 - 08:00

Some good news at last for Conor McGregor.

Probably there’s a way of spinning it as bad news, which is what the scum mainstream media will do.

But in the wake of his defeat in a Dublin civil case against a woman who accused him of raping her, as brands and fans scramble to disown him, as murals are hastily painted over across the island, you have to take your pledges of support where you can find them. Step forward: Andrew Tate.

“Bullshit ruling against Conor McGregor,” wrote Tate from Romania, where he is facing his own legal issues, including charges of trafficking and rape.

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“Women sleep with rich men and if that man doesn’t fund their life afterwards, they lie and sue. Their brutal narcissism can’t take the L of being undesired. We’ve set a dangerous precedent. It’s literally impossible to be a man in the western world.”

But Tate, of course, is never one to let the truth get in the way of a tweet.

Notwithstanding the fact that many men in the western world do occasionally manage to struggle by – where’s our podcast empire and internet university? – there is a certain plaintive quality to all this. The hypersensitivity, the victim card, the persecution complex: is this not quite . . . woke?

Then again, perhaps you need an intellect on Tate’s hyperextended level to find any kind of common ground with McGregor right now.

Of course, kicking McGregor at this point in time – whether in print or in the pocket – is the easy bit. We know this because even the brands, those famous arbiters of ethical taste, have now begun to part ways. Tesco and Costcutter are among the supermarkets no longer stocking the brand of whiskey he founded. All McGregor content and likenesses have been removed from the Hitman series of video games.

“We take this matter very seriously,” said a spokesperson from IO Interactive.

[ ‘I know what happened in that room’: the full story of the Conor McGregor case ]

At which juncture it is worth reflecting on all the previous matters not deemed worthy of been taken very seriously by McGregor’s many commercial confederates over the years.

Not serious: the time he was convicted of punching a man in a Dublin pub or snatching and smashing a fan’s mobile phone. Not serious: the time he aimed racist slurs at Floyd Mayweather and his entourage. Not serious: the time he called rival Khabib Nurmagomedov – a practicing Muslim – a “backwards c**t” for refusing to drink whiskey. Or called Nurmagomedov’s manager “a terrorist” and his wife “a towel”, or threw a metal dolly at his bus.

The Nurmagomedov fight – its chaotic build-up, violent aftermath and toxic fallout – is often held as the start of McGregor’s decline. Perhaps this is true in a strictly athletic sense. But the wider McGregor universe – the sinister cult of content and hype and commercial vindication and para-social sycophancy that he constructed around his talents – endured for years after those talents deserted him.

From the very start McGregor was telling us and showing us who he was. And despite this, perhaps even because of this, he was lauded, applauded, richly rewarded.

The noxious appeal of McGregor was never simply about what he could do with a quick left counter or a bloody elbow. From the start he was exalted as something more: a working-class hero, a patriotic icon, an aspirational figure, a model for a certain kind of masculinity, perhaps even a (nakedly capitalist) paradigm of what success looked and felt like in the 21st century. Where criminality and controversy, racism and sexism, ableism and homophobia, are simply part of the irresistible lore, a handy way of selling tickets and pay-per-view packages.

Occasionally it was necessary, in certain polite circles, to caveat the adulation of McGregor with the reality of his actions. “Divisive” was often the euphemism of choice. “Love him or hate him” was another, as if this were simply a consumer choice, a matter of personal taste, like putting jam first or cream first on a scone. Rather than a moral judgment, a very particular way of seeing the world and the people in it.

And what was this worldview? A world in which the only worth is earned through fame, wealth and physical force: the rancid triangle of male fantasy. Where all our problems can be solved with violence. Where you never have to apologise, show vulnerability, tell the truth. Where, as he so memorably once put it, “the double champ does what the f**k he wants”.

From here it is a short step to the idea that you are simply entitled to your own version of reality, that whatever you say is true simply by virtue of issuing it from your mouth. In this he was readily abetted by sport, by the fighting community, who were less fussed about pushing back on his unacceptable views and indiscriminate violence than in cashing the cheques from it.

As recently as August this year, Eddie Hearn was still defending him as “a great guy and a hilarious character”, promising him a handsome pay-day if he ever decided to return to boxing.

Where does this lead?

Perhaps to a Dublin courtroom in November 2024 where for two weeks a jury heard harrowing testimony from Nikita Hand before finding McGregor liable for assault and awarding damages of €248,603. (McGregor intends to appeal against the decision.)

Perhaps to the unseemly stampede of brands and celebrities now distancing themselves from a man they once heartily endorsed. Perhaps to the Dublin race riots of late 2023, in which McGregor’s declaration of “war” was seized upon by far-right Telegram channels, often comprising the very same disaffected young men upon which he built an empire.

It was around this time that McGregor unveiled his plans to run for president of Ireland, pledging to stamp out corruption, dissolve the Dáil, fight for the people against the traitors and elites. Probably this dream is dead for now.

Probably even McGregor’s most deranged backers will now disown him; pragmatism, profit, PR and principle finally, briefly in alignment. I mean, imagine a nation electing as its president a man found liable for sexual assault. Oh. Hang on. – Guardian