2021 saw the return of Conor McGregor as he fought Dustin Poirier twice this year and lost both fights. Each saw a different side of McGregor. Regardless, he still is a top draw in the company as the PPVs saw the biggest buy rates this year.
In January, McGregor returned to fight Poirier on Fight Island. McGregor was the kinder, gentler fighter and the hype was amicable with Poirier. As a show of charity, McGregor stated he would make a donation to Poirier’s The Good Fight Foundation.
As we know, the fight saw a good first round for McGregor, but Poirier took over in round 2 and stopped the former 2-time champ. The two seemed to be fine after the fight still being cordial.
This past fall, McGregor shared the PPV buy rate based on his upside via social media:
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) October 4, 2021
But something happened along the way to their third fight as Poirier revealed that McGregor did not donate the money he had promised. McGregor indicated that before he transferred the $500,000 he promised he wanted to know what it would be used for. Instead, McGregor donated $500,000 to a Boys& Girls Club in Louisiana.
The second fight took place at UFC 264 in Las Vegas this past July. The lead-up to the fight was much more acrimonious with McGregor taking shots at Poirier and not giving the Embedded crew anything to work with unless it had to do with promoting his ancillary products he was selling. In the trilogy, Poirier stopped McGregor via TKO in round 1 after he broke his tibia. In an awkward post-fight interview in the Octagon, McGregor went on a verbal tirade against Poirier and his wife.
Although McGregor did not tweet the UFC 264 buy rate (yet), multiple outlets reported it drawing 1.3M buys domestically and 500,000 internationally for a total of 1.8 million buys.
Outside of the Octagon, McGregor remained controversial with several incidents including a story about a sexual assault allegation in Ireland prior to January’s fight. Then, there was an altercation in a nightclub in Rome this past October and perhaps a fabricated incident with Machine Gun Kelly at the MTV VMAs.
Its still not known when McGregor will be back in the Octagon although its likely that he will be back in the UFC at some point. While there was potential for McGregor to box Manny Pacquiao, that opportunity has gone by the wayside. A trilogy fight with Nate Diaz or a rematch with Max Holloway would be big fights. But, the question must be asked is if his next fight is a must win for the former double division champion.
You can see the rest of the Top 10 of 2021 here.
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