Mixed martial arts' longest-reigning current champion had just defended his title in a career-defining, Fight of the Year-contending showdown.
And yet UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo had a challenger barely ranked in the division's top five on his mind when he took mic.
"My court is full now," Aldo said, after scoring a unanimous decision over Chad Mendes on Saturday night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. "I am the king, Chad is the prince, and there is a joker now."
Mendes, for his part, took things another step and mentioned the "joker" by name when it was his turn to address the crowd.
"The one person who is lucky the decision didn't go my way is Conor McGregor," Mendes said. "I'm still looking forward to whipping your ass, buddy."
While post-fight callouts are nothing new, the scene at UFC 179 was unique. Both of the top two fighters in the division, having engaged in a battle that will be long remembered, went out of their way to try to goad someone beneath them on the pecking order, one who conveniently happened to be seated at cageside.
The dual callouts capped a remarkable week for the bombastic Irish star, as he finally reached critical mass.
The mouthy McGregor managed to insert himself into fight week in Rio at just about every turn.
First came the announcement of his next fight, a main event of a Fox Sports 1 card in Irish-heavy Boston against Dennis Siver on Jan. 18, with the NFL's conference championship games as a lead-in.
Then came a Friday fan Q&A session, which had a pro wrestling feel. The fans by and large took turns insulting McGregor, and the fighter gave it as good as he got it, letting the Brazilians know he planned on taking Aldo's title back to Ireland eventually.
Saturday marked the culmination. The UFC has gone all-in on the McGregor hype train, so much so that the champion and top contender dragged him into their biggest moment.
Later, at the post-fight news conference, Aldo was asked by reporters about the division's resident motor mouth. Aldo once again avoided mentioning McGregor by name, but he did use the name of another fighter who was known as much for his mouth as his record inside the Octagon.
"He's a guy who just talks," Aldo said. "He hasn't fought anyone as tough as [Aldo and Mendes]. So to get here right now and talk, I've heard that a lot. Chael Sonnen did that a lot in his weight class, and now he's lost, so he can talk as much as he wants."
Ignoring Sonnen's multiple steroid test failures for the sake of argument, Sonnen did win a string of fights at middleweight to get to a pair of shots at then-champion Anderson Silva. His larger-than-life personality enabled him to keep getting feature bouts long after other contenders came and went.
For all his talk, McGregor, with a 4-0 UFC record, has passed every test he's faced to date. With the exception of a decision over Max Holloway in which he suffered a knee injury that shelved him for nearly a year, McGregor has finished all his UFC foes, with each fight a higher level of competition than the previous.
McGregor gets what Sonnen understood and what much of the rest of the featherweight division doesn't seem to grasp: The fight business is, in fact, a business, where the fighter needs to be his own CEO as much as an athlete.
"I think a lot of people, they have the approach, they sit out and wait," McGregor said. "But in my mind, the belt is already wrapped around my waist. I walk about like I am already the champion. It is about money. I'm fit. I'm healthy. I want to compete as much as possible. … So I just want to continue fighting. In my mind, it's not a risk. I am the world champion eliminating contenders. I said before, one by one, each one of them will be gone. I am in the process of that."
So the question remains, if Aldo vs. McGregor seems like a license to print money, why go the Siver route first?
"A lot of people are dismissing Siver and saying this fight is ridiculous," UFC president Dana White said at the post-fight news conference. "Siver knows exactly what happens if he comes in and beats Conor McGregor. It's a huge win for him; you know he's going to take the fight serious and he's going to come in to try and win, so there's no sense in really even talking about the Aldo fight.
"If [McGregor] should win, we would definitely be interested in making that fight," White continued. "But this has to happen first. Let the Siver fight happen first, and we'll see how everything else plays out."
McGregor managed to make himself the star of the show without even stepping into the Octagon. Perhaps that's why the perpetual trash talker stepped back and offered praise to Aldo and Mendes after one of the year's most memorable slugfest, even as they made it clear they don't think much of him.
"It was a phenomenal contest," McGregor said on Fox Sports 1's UFC 179 post-fight show. "I show my respect for both competitors. They slugged it out, that Thai style: You hit me, I hit you, we stand and trade. It was beautiful to watch the fight."
Follow Dave Doyle on Twitter @DaveDoyleMMA.
