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The Dublin champion of the UFC is not funny, is not smart and is now so predictable that it is no longer shocking. Why can not he use his position to become a model with real dignity and influence?
For some, it's a hero. But for most people here, Conor McGregor has become a national embarrassment.
Or, as he might say himself, "a disgrace".
I have adult sons who follow boxing and occasionally the MMA and the UFC, so McGregor-Khabib Nurmagomedov's pre-fight press conference last week was on TV in our home. McGregor threw himself into a tirade of blasphemy, studded with the keyword, word-s and even word-c.
Read more: Conor McGregor whiskey sold at Tesco Ireland supermarket
It was not funny, it was not smart, it was not even so shocking that was what we expected from him.
What it was for anyone who had half of the brain was degrading, depressing and tedious to the point of getting bored. The language was this time even worse than before.
"They remind me of Donald Trump's supporters …"@WhosAdrianBarryis pretty sick of a certain cohort of McGregor fans after a week of fighting after his # UFC229 Talk with @ niallmcgrath4 ?
Does he have a point? #OTBAM https://t.co/Phceeqw6d4 pic.twitter.com/TzCzJnbgMn
– Off The Ball (@offtheball) September 28, 2018
It was bad enough to watch this on TV in Ireland. At least, we're used to this kind of gutter spreads here, because that's the kind of silly and vicious abuse you hear young thugs in the streets of Dublin if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, night . This is the kind of gross repugnance that often results in a stab or an innocent bystander who has lost consciousness.
What was even more embarrassing at last week's press conference in Ireland was that it was taking place in the iconic Radio City Music Hall in New York, not just Americans but people from all over the world. watched and listened. What McGregor did again was play in the cliché of the drunken drunk man fighting, swearing, spitting bile and waving a bottle of his new whiskey. But it was the language that was the worst, serious enough for the vast majority of the Irish to flee.
You can find the complete press conference online easily. But here's a taste – a little start in which McGregor complains that fans are not allowed to participate in the press conference:
"If I were the owner and I was part of the promotion, I would have had the craziest fans in this arena.Where are the craziest fans?" Who is who pays for the tickets? , McGregor roared.
"It's who deserves this show. Bring me around the world and we're sitting here in something like that. I am on probation and in my eyes in current and future civil cases. And we come here to make this bull ***. Here we are, you wanted a war, you know what I say? Let's make a war. F *** all those stupid others ***. "
This gives you a flavor and, minus the word-c, it's far from being the worst of what he's spitting.
Why is it tolerated? If a leading figure in any other sport in America – football, basketball, American football, even boxing – was prey to rudeness, personal insults and threats by McGregor, they would be banned and ostracized. Each sponsor would cancel his involvement and each advertiser would pull his advertisement.
"I do not give a f ** k" – @TheNotoriousMMA does not hold anything back to # UFC229… pic.twitter.com/t51HWfKdSL
– UFC Europe (@UFCEurope) September 27, 2018
The suspicions must be that McGregor's bad mouth is tolerated precisely because he is Irish and that too many people in the United States are buying the cliche.
Of course, and Mendorrah, it's a laugh. It's just that he's comic Oirish. Fighting and abusing drunkenness is what they do there on Emerald Isle, right?
McGregor, as you know, called The Notorious. It's a title and an image that he cultivates and strives to respect.
Or maybe that should be the case, because at this point it has bottomed out and there is nowhere to go except to be even more disgusting and abusive.
At this point, the law of diminishing returns applies as it exhausts any remaining shock value, and its eulogy and delusion cross the line in absurdity. If it was not so nauseating and pathetic, it would be funny.
Read more: Conor McGregor, you can leave the Irish tricolor alone
But wait, his fans would say, you miss the point. It's just being smart. It's about maximizing the international pay-TV audience for the October 6 sold-out fight in Vegas.
He knows what he's doing. In fact, he is much smarter than his critics and he does not care if anyone is shocked by his antics and his language.
And of course, there's no one in the UFC / MMA / boxing world that's better than McGregor because we know from worldwide advertising that his trash cans have spoken before his boxing match with Mayweather. 100 million dollars.
But are you okay? Is there no depth to which he will not fall?
He does not need more money. He must be aware that as a world star of sport he happens to be Irish, he has a duty not to embarrass his country and the vast majority of people here who find his behavior and language offensive.
Most of us here are not angry. And most of us here can put sentences together without repeated use of the keyword, something that seems to overtake it.
There is a more serious aspect to all this. Whether we like it or not, McGregor's fighting career and celebrity status have made him a role model for many young men, not just in Ireland but elsewhere.
They put their speeches in the garbage and whistle his tempo and his level of aggression barely mastered. They want to be like him, fight like him and, yes, talk like him.
They admire the level of explosive threat he emerges, even when he is in a press conference or on a television show rather than in the octagon or the ring.
The problem with McGregor's behavior is that it gives the impression that this kind of behavior is admirable, a kind of prolongation of madness. It's far from being the only source of inspiration for the violence we all too often see around us in Dublin (and elsewhere), but this must be a contributing factor. It's legitimizing.
When young wild men attack someone in a late row and subject them to submission because of a perceived insult, they only do what their hero does.
McGregor is originally from Crumlin, once one of Dublin's most difficult regions, although he has since been replaced by other groups, especially on the north side of the city. The senseless intimidation, anti-social behavior and outright violence perpetrated by youth gangs in these areas is causing seniors to leave their homes at night and parents to leave their children outside during the day. Some streets and areas have become a miserable place to live because of blind violence.
You see it in the aggressive behavior of young people, creating problems in shops, bus stops, on the Dart and Luas (local trams to the city center). They vandalize, unearth, steal, destroy property and fight for amusement. Anyone trying to intervene attracts a flood of dishonest abuse and can become a physical target, sometimes with very ugly consequences.
All of this is part of a state of mind that seeks imaginary insult and jumps into confrontation. It comes from the same place as that head back, chest, the aggressive blunderer that McGregor uses. The foul language comes from the same script.
It may seem unfair to put all this out of McGregor while the whole circus of the UFC is part of the problem. UFC President Dana White, who said he was dismayed by McGregor's bus attack six months ago, is now using footage from the incident to promote the upcoming fight.
And he did nothing to curb McGregor 's behavior at last week' s press conference because he knows it will generate even more money. In addition, he signed a contract with McGregor for six more fights at the UFC.
The UFC is as bad as McGregor's language. But McGregor is the star and he could increase the game if he wanted it.
The most unfortunate thing is that it does not need to do this stuff to fall to this level. It's an extraordinary sportsman, even if you do not like the sport in which he plays.
Because he is Irish, he has even more influence here than elsewhere. If he had the vision, he could stand out from all that stuff and become a model with real dignity and influence.
Instead of using foul language all the time, he could use humor and his intelligence to be a positive force. Instead of spitting the language of the gutters, he could be a brilliant, entertaining and inspiring interlocutor like Muhammad Ali.
He could be a real hero. At present, it is only a national embarrassment.
Read more: What is the IRA song Conor McGregor likes to play before his fights?
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