Conor is probably the king of trash talk in UFC. He turned it into an art form that kind of spiraled out of control and I think that the talk became more of a focus for him than actually being the best at fighting. It didn't really matter though because the combination of these things ended up making him by far, the highest earner in the history of MMA. He was smart with his wealth and branched out to make businesses that will have a much greater chance of giving him an income long after he is no longer fighting. So I give the man props for that, he is smart, there is no denying this.
However, Conor, despite the fact that they really try to pump him any time he does literally anything, isn't part of the championship picture and is very unlikely to ever be again. He is a cash cow, that is for sure, but I believe that his placement in certain fights is carefully orchestrated by both Conor and UFC. They don't actually want him to be in the championship picture because if he gets humbled by the top guys, which in my opinion seems very likely, then he will cease to be a big draw and then hundreds of millions of potential dollars are gone.
If you get a fight with Conor, you are going to be making a ton of money, so basically everyone calls him out and now it seems as though there is a competition to see who can be the most insulting to try to get a rise out of the guy.
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Now before I go any further I want people to see if they have any idea who the person above is. Probably not I would say because he is a non-issue for the most part in MMA and UFC. His name is Joaquin Buckley and until his recent non-pay-per-view fight this weekend on ESPN, I have never seen the guy fight and only saw his name appear on some lists.
He called out Conor McGregor in a clearly rehearsed speech and it is just bizarre and while it was reasonably witty, everyone knows what he is trying to do here.
“Conor McGregor, I want you, You fighting at 170, but you ain’t fighting a welterweight. You’re fighting a lightweight midget. Come at me. You said you built your weight up, but you’re bullying Sean O’Malley and Ryan Garcia. Come and bully me, dog. Let’s see what you’re really about. I did research on the McGregor name, and you come from a long, long line of McHoes.
He then went on to call Conor's entire bloodline a bunch of hoes and then stated that Conor is a hoe as well.
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I'm not gonna knock Buckley's performance, but it was a decision victory in a minor event in St. Louis. This is not the big time and he, at the moment anyway, isn't even in the same weight division as McGregor. He is the 11th ranked welterweight in the world, which is quite the accomplishment, but calling out McGregor after a win is an obvious and rather pathetic, sort of "begging" for a big money fight. Conor really shouldn't respond to this because he stands to gain nothing by doing so. A lot of people call out McGregor, but only Nate Diaz had a compelling reason for doing so. Nate was genuinely pissed at Conor for "ruining what he spent his whole life working for".... stating that Conor had turned to sport into WWE where doing microphone promos and someone's antics outside the octagon was more important than their performance in the octagon.
He had a point, Conor took it seriously, Dana White took it as an insult, and the beef escalated from there until the fight happened and Diaz actually won.
Buckley is a relative nobody in this game and his callout is being called "bizarre" by a lot of people, including me. Conor is already booked up for the rest of the year and even if he did have spare time, why on earth would he battle a guy in a different weight class that is clearly looking to boost his own name and especially his bank balance. Buckley should focus on climbing up the welterweight charts. At the same time I guess he is using Conor's own tactics against him. It won't be successful until he gets more wins and impressive wins, under his belt. A decision victory at a non PPV event isn't going to cut it.
It's stupid... everyone knows what Buckley is going for here, and very few people are actually applauding it.
Could Buckley defeat McGregor? I mean, maybe but Conor stands to gain nothing by even acknowledging that this insult even happened.