Conor Mcgregor wanted to print up his own money for his next fight. He was looking for a volunteer to do it. I said I could do it, and suggested we print it up with the face of his opponent, not his face. I told him, “You don’t want to spend your own money, spend his.” He looked around at his camp and asked who the fuck I was. I calmly sat down next to him and said, “I’m Mike Mulvey.”

He told everyone they had to get up and train with him at 6 AM every day. He said he understood that it wasn’t for everyone but they would become better people for it.

Back on April 21, after is his UFC loss to Nate Diaz, Conor McGregor posted this on Facebook:

I am just trying to do my job and fight here.

I am paid to fight. I am not yet paid to promote.

I have become lost in the game of promotion and forgot about the art of fighting.

There comes a time when you need to stop handing out flyers and get back to the damn shop.

50 world tours, 200 press conferences, 1 million interviews, 2 million photo shoots, and at the end of it all I’m left looking down the barrel of a lens, staring defeat in the face, thinking of nothing but my incorrect fight preparation. And the many distractions that led to this.

Nothing else was going through my mind.

A guy like Conor McGregor doesn’t come around often. Not only is he an amazing fighter who’s proven himself in the ring, but he’s a personality who’s infusing the UFC with some serious energy and fun. He’s just awesome to watch in- and outside the ring.

But they say you see a person’s true colors not when things are going great, but when they’re bad and it’s here where we get to see a man acknowledging his mistakes and doing what is necessary to fix them.

I love the show Conor’s been putting on since he joined the UFC, but I agree with him that he needs to re-focus on what got him there: his fighting skills.

Over at The 42, Paul Dollery on Conor McGregor’s 2012 fight with Dave Hill:

Since his subsequent rise to the top in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, much has been made of Conor McGregor’s apparent ability to break his opponents mentally before the fight has even begun. Not only is he an immensely talented fighter, but he’s an expert at mind games too.

One wonders how psychological warfare can become such a key component of a contest between two professional fighters. Regardless of whether mind games have been involved, the story always culminates with the athletes settling their differences by locking themselves in a cage and trading blows.

How do words and actions beforehand manage to make that a more intimidating prospect? Hill mentions that he felt “overwhelmed” by McGregor, both at the weigh-ins and during the fight, but how has McGregor managed to master that?

“I think it’s his inner confidence. He’s obviously such a confident bloke. I cleared my head after the weigh-ins but then during the fight he started talking again. He was saying: ‘I’ll go all day with you, you look soft, I’ll go five rounds if you need to.’ Then I started wondering if I should say something back, because I’d never been in that position before.

“So you start thinking of how you’re supposed to react and that kind of messes with your head as well. It’s definitely his confidence and that shows in the way he fights. He’s constantly moving forward, pushing you back and inflicting his game on you, so you don’t get a chance to inflict your game on him.”

Talk all you want about how much you may hate McGregor’s cockiness but he’s the champ and for good reason.