LAS VEGAS – Conor McGregor is seated on a chair inside of a small room near the MGM Grand Garden. He's talking to broadcasters from around the world, promoting his bout with Chad Mendes on Saturday in the main event of UFC 189 for the interim featherweight title.
He's been asked at least three times in a row about his weight cut. Former UFC middleweight contender Chael Sonnen had said that McGregor needed to lose 27 pounds by mid-afternoon Friday in order to make the 145-pound featherweight title limit.
"On July 10, I will be 145 pounds, as I am every time," McGregor said in a staccato tone. "On July 11, I will be an absolute wrecking machine."
He goes on for a few more minutes about the damage he'll do to Mendes. He's clearly searching his memory for a line he wants to use, but can't bring it to mind.
As the interview ends, he moans. He was trying to bring to mind a Muhammad Ali rant from a September 1974 press conference, when "The Greatest" was a massive underdog prior to a fight with "Big" George Foreman.
"I've done rassled with an alligator," Ali says, as the crowd laughs. "That's right. I've rassled with an alligator. I've tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning and thrown thunder in jail. That's bad. Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone and brutalized a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick."
While awaiting the next interview, McGregor fumbles with his phone, searching the Internet for the exact clip. He finds it, and out of his phone comes Ali's distinctive voice.
"Oh," he says, leaning back with a huge grin but sounding pained. "I should have used that."
Each of the next three interviewers asks him about the weight cut and he gives the same answer. There are about 12 people in the room, but because McGregor is wearing an earpiece, no one else can hear the questions.
It's only when he answers that there is a hint of what has been asked. Like clockwork, each interviewer asks him about needing to lose 27 pounds by Friday. Eventually, his coach, John Kavanagh, who is seated in a chair about 20 feet to his left, bends over at the waist and laughs heartily.
McGregor doesn't change his demeanor until the interview ends and then looks to his right, where his girlfriend, Dee Devlin, and Kavanagh, are sitting. He lets out an impish grin in their direction, then says, "I can hear you," and instantly gets back to work with the next interview.
There's the question about the weight cut. There's the question about the alleged $3 million bet with UFC president Dana White. There's the question about the animosity he has for featherweight champion Jose Aldo. He was supposed to be fighting Aldo instead of Mendes on Saturday, but Aldo injured a rib and withdrew from the fight last week.
McGregor glides effortlessly from one to the other, changing his emotion to suit the question, always on point.
This is where the sausage is made, the things the stars must do to promote the shows. A visitor to the room stands up to snap a photo of him as he's awaiting the next interview.
"Make sure you get the Louis in the picture," he says, adjusting the Louis Vuitton bag he purchased on Monday to make certain it's in the camera shot.
He's aware of everything, prepared for every eventuality.
Someone speaks in his ear and again he's off, zero to 60 in mere seconds, ripping Aldo and celebrating his prediction much earlier in the promotion.
Listen to him long enough and it's easy to get the feeling that he truly doesn't like Aldo. He takes a number of shots at him. Rarely do professional fighters truly dislike each other; they occasionally say they do because they believe it's good for business.
As McGregor speaks, there is an earnestness in his voice that suggests this is more than just mere fight hype.
Later, after the interviews with the broadcasters end, he walks to a table at the other end of the room and stretches out his legs. It seems, a visitor said, as if you really do dislike Aldo personally. Perhaps, it's suggested, you're angry at him for pulling out.
McGregor adjusts his shades and sits up straight. He leans forward and looks the person across from him directly in the eye.
"Nah," he says. "It was never personal to me. It's just business. Business to me is never personal."
But it's clearly become personal to a lot of his opponents. Aldo nearly went berserk when McGregor snatched his title belt near the end of a raucous news conference in Dublin, Ireland.
Mendes, too, admits he's taken some of the insults McGregor has hurled at him personally. McGregor has mocked him for being short, which Mendes just laughed off. But when McGregor suggested in October as Aldo and Mendes were preparing to meet that if he ever fought Mendes, he'd put a part of his anatomy on Mendes' head, Mendes got infuriated.
"Yeah, the short [expletive], I mean, I don't really give a [expletive] about that kind of stuff," Mendes said. "I've been short my whole life. But, for me it was, we had to do an interview right before my Aldo fight, and he was talking about putting [his genitals] on my head and just being very unprofessional.
"That is something that made it personal. And for me, you don't [expletive] do that."
That's exactly the kind of response McGregor says he's seeking. Like Ali, like Floyd Mayweather, he's selling the show. If it makes his opponent angry and throws him off his game plan, it's all the better for him.
"It is personal to them," he said. "I feel they get emotionally invested in this game. But to me, it's just business. I don't know where I got that attitude, but I've never taken fighting personally, even as a kid. I never did. I map out the route to victory and I just execute it."
He grew up poor in Dublin, and learned to fight not for self-defense or because he wanted to be a boxer – a sport near and dear to the hearts of his countrymen – but rather because he loved to fight.
It was only later, when he realized he was good at it, that he decided to use his talents to make his living.
Only a little more than two years ago, he was on public assistance, struggling to make it day by day. Now, he's purchasing designer bags and glasses and suits.
During one of his interviews with the broadcasters, he's asked about his taste for the high life. Later, he's asked if he's trying to emulate Mayweather and use his wealth as a means of promoting himself.
Mayweather, who is nicknamed "Money May," just made more than $200 million for his May 2 bout with Manny Pacquiao and has far exceeded a half-billion dollars in career earnings.
"I respect Floyd's business mind," McGregor said. "He's generated a hell of a lot of money in this business."
He pauses, and though there are a few seconds of silence, it's clear he's not through. McGregor never cedes the upper hand, not even when it comes in a conversation about money and the richest athlete of all time.
"Check his numbers when he was 26 years of age," McGregor said. "I'm 26, and I'm young in this business. Check my numbers, 26 against 26. We'll see where it goes."
He famously – and wisely – once said his plan was "to get in, get rich and get out." When it's suggested to him that he can't possibly make anything near Mayweather-type money if he gets out quickly, he responds that "get out quickly" is a relative term.
One of his long-term goals is to hold titles in at least two divisions and he didn't rule out a campaign at welterweight, as well.
He has yet to win one title in the UFC, let alone three, but if he collected championship belts at 145, 155 and 170, he'd be the first UFC fighter ever to win titles in three weight classes. Only two men, Randy Couture (heavyweight and light heavyweight) and B.J. Penn (lightweight and welterweight) have ever won titles in two.
"I look at this as a complete picture," McGregor said. "I want to break ground inside the Octagon. I want to change and break new grounds in the business aspects. And that's what I feel I'm doing. I throw shots that haven't been seen before. I generate numbers that haven't seen before. And you know what? This is only the beginning.
"Just watch what happens. This is only the tip of the iceberg of what I'm going to do and where I'm going to wind up."
