I know this is going to come as a shock to many of you, but Dana White really likes Conor McGregor. That’s despite the recent spat they had after McGregor showed up at UFC 223 with a gang ready to start a brawl with Khabib Nurmagomedov, landing himself in jail. But all that is water under the bridge now that McGregor and Nurmagomedov are set to fight at uFC 229 on October 6th.
“He’s my [Muhammad] Ali. He’s my [Mike] Tyson,” White gushed during a FOX News feature. “He burst onto the scene and I knew the minute I sat down and had dinner with him that this kid was going to be a star. I didn’t know if he’d be able to fight and I didn’t know if he’d be able to win a title, but I knew he was going to be a star.”
This is nothing new. White has been making comparisons between McGregor and Muhammad Ali for years now going all the way back to 2015.
”To compare anybody to Ali is kind of stupid because of all the other great things that were associated with him from a social movement and everything else,” White admitted at the time. “But Conor has just got that sparkle, that thing to him. Wherever he goes -- whether we put him on TV, whether he’s doing an interview, whether he’s around a group of people -- he just is the center of attention. He’s got that special quality, and for a guy that’s fought in the UFC four times to have the interest of GQ Magazine, Men’s Health, ESPN? He’s got it.”
Later that year, White would describe McGregor’s ability to trash talk as Ali-esque.
”He is the greatest mental warfare fighter I have ever met,” he said. “Ever. The best. He doesn’t just fuck with the guys he’s going to fight. He fucks with everybody. I know it’s sacrilege to compare anybody to Muhammad Ali in anything in the fight business. You don’t ever want to be comparing people to Muhammad Ali, but he’s the only one who comes to mind when it comes to the mental warfare that Conor wages.”
Now there’s no more need to qualify the statement. Conor McGregor is White’s Ali and Tyson and everything all wrapped into one. With McGregor about to smash the record, yet again, for most UFC PPVs sold, it’s no surprise White thinks the world of his superstar fighter.
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