It could be argued that Conor McGregor is one of the greatest UFC fighters of all time.The Irish superstar shot through the ranks with infamous bouts over the years, including a double header against Nate Diaz (one win each) and finishing Jose Aldo in just 13 seconds to win the featherweight championship.However, a recent video featuring McGregor (uploaded by Twitter user @EvolKame) shows Notorious predicting his own downfall.McGregor is resting against a wall visibly exhausted as he spoke. There is a sadness in his voice as he draws comparisons between himself and Vincent van Gogh. This may appear strange, but the Irishman explains that he feels that he is giving his life to his “art,” similar to the famous artist.What’s crazy is that this video is from a training camp back in 2013 and McGregor is already feeling as if he is losing his mind dedicating each and every day to perfecting his fighting craft. He set out clear targets for himself both in and out of the Octagon.In the video, he states, 'When that gold belt is around my waist, when my mother has a mansion and my girlfriend has a different car for each day of the week,' he’ll feel like fighting has paid off.
He even identified that he wanted his ‘kids’ kids’ to live without any financial trouble. This could potentially allude to why he seemed to lose focus once he had achieved these luxuries.
The aforementioned run of McGregor between 2015 and the end of 2016 signalled one of the fastest rises in MMA history. He even defeated Eddie Alvarez to accessorise his featherweight championship with the lightweight belt as well.
It was from here, though, that things seemed to spiral downwards for Notorious.
The UFC set up one of the biggest fights in their history between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov. The build up to this fight was ugly to say the least with things getting extremely personal between the fighters. An interesting note is that through this intense build up, McGregor took many opportunities to plug his new Whisky brand, which was a sign that perhaps his best interests weren’t entirely on the sport side of things.
Intrigue for the fight was palpable, so it came as a huge surprise how one sided it ended up being. Khabib defeated McGregor at 3:03 in the fourth round via a neck crank with the Irishman putting in an uncharacteristic performance.
It took 15 months for the ‘Notorious’ Conor McGregor to step back into the Octagon, this time against Donald Cerrone. It only took 40 seconds for him to win, which offered hope to any lapsed Conor fan.
This was, however, met with two consecutive losses to Dustin Poirier in 2021 and we are yet to see the Irishman appear in the UFC since.
After this short clip revealed that McGregor was “losing his mind” fighting, even from early years, was it any surprise he struggled to maintain his confidence and character after he’d achieved everything he wanted to?
He had the heart to get to the top, but, perhaps, he didn’t have the mentality to stay there.