In Las Vegas, everyone is searching for the old Conor McGregor

LAS VEGAS — Despite the UFC’s annual Hall of Fame ceremony starting three hours earlier, fans continued to trickle into T-Mobile Arena five minutes before Conor McGregor’s arrival to the UFC 329 press conference on Thursday. 

Not knowing the way to the venue 30 minutes before, I spied a group of 30-somethings led by a man wearing an old “You’ll do f**kin’ nothing” McGregor t-shirt and used them as my north star. 

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I trailed them through Aria and into Park MGM, where multiple concession stands had McGregor merch taking pride of place alongside some UFC Freedom 250 fight kits. There were small smatterings of green and a few tricolors floating about, but nothing in comparison to the emerald oceans we saw back in 2015 when “The Notorious” felled Chad Mendes and Jose Aldo to rise as the king of the UFC’s featherweight division. 

That same McGregor fight week feel wasn’t in the air, but still, a healthy crowd bustled into the venue, with its gargantuan size minimizing the impact of the footfall. Be that as it may, the roar of the throng when “The Notorious” hit the stage could be heard throughout the substantial walls of the premises, confirming he still sits atop the mountain as the UFC’s defining mainstream celebrity. 

“This why I’m back, for the love of the game and the love of the fans,” the Irishman boomed. “It’s great to be back here in Vegas, five years out, but I’ve been fighting since I came out of the womb and I’ll be fighting until the day I go out!” 

Conor McGregor reacts to the crowd during the UFC 329 press conference at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.Chris Unger via Getty Images

While the unpleasant sentiment in Ireland surrounding McGregor’s return is not matched stateside, there have been some notable exceptions to those celebrating his return. 

Earlier this week, The Burren bar in the Bronx, New York — a famous haven for the Irish diaspora — announced in a Facebook post that it will not be showing his return bout. 

“We’ve collectively decided as owners to follow the lead of numerous Irish pubs, retailers, and boxing clubs that have chosen to dissociate from [McGregor] after he was found civilly liable for rape and assault,” the post read. 

Although they are not joining the New York bar’s boycott, Rí Rá at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas revealed they’re expecting a much smaller assembly for Saturday’s record-breaking fight compared to McGregor’s glory years. 

“We are showing it, but the cost of it this year was extremely high compared to what it usually is,” Scott Sherman, general manager of the Rí Rá told the Irish Mirror. 

“Normally we would be showing it in the whole pub, but we're only doing the back part of the pub so the most I will have watching it will be 299 people.” 

A lot has changed with McGregor, but the sport’s infatuation with him remains second to none. At Wednesday night’s World MMA Awards at the Sahara, media colleagues confided in each other about how different the two-weight titleholder has presented himself in comparison to his heyday. 

Earlier that day, McGregor arrived 95 minutes late for his 2 p.m. PT media obligations — an aggressive nod to his championship days — and spoke in his new, breathless, staccato style. It’s another departure from the silver-tongued rogue who had the press row eating out of the palms of his hands a decade ago, but it didn’t stop some enthusiastic commenters from insisting that this pattern of speech was exactly how he sounded back in 2015. 

After a photoshoot in his new signature UFC trunks, McGregor’s body was scrutinized across social media more than a World War II pin-up from Yank, the Army Weekly. And it wasn’t just his body that was under the microscope, people zoomed in on his face and his legs to examine the damage from his infamous last performance against Dustin Poirier in 2021. Before the day was out, side-by-side playbacks of his autograph signing techniques from his current form and a half-decade ago were also being examined. 

Conor McGregor's every move has been under a microscope.Jeff Bottari via Getty Images

He sat in front of the media for 22 minutes and it took 12 minutes for a question to be asked about him being found liable for the sexual assault of Nikita Hand in Dublin civil court. McGregor wasted no time in declaring his position when Martin Domin, combat sports editor of the Daily Mirror, asked him how he felt about the people who believed he didn’t deserve the platform the UFC were giving him.

“I’m an innocent man, and I’ll stand for my innocent until the day I go out,” McGregor replied. “And that is still a situation where I fight. There’s a reason it didn’t go where it went and it went to a civil trial. It is what it is. It stings deep. I continue to fight. I know the truth and I know that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. And I know that anything in darkness will some come to the light and I trust in God that’s coming.” 

Tomorrow, the Octagon door will close behind him, opinions will evaporate into the desert sky, and the most brutal truth will reveal itself.

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