Conor McGregor is back… to betting hundreds of thousands of dollars at UFC PPVs. At UFC 308, “The Notorious” is happy to gamble away half a million bucks on his former rival Max Holloway and middleweight contender Robert ‘The Reaper’ Whittaker.
Call it the luck of the Irish, but McGregor actually has a solid betting record. Back in July, he made $3 million in a week gambling on Spain winning the Euros, Argentina winning Copa America, and his former nemesis, Nate Diaz winning his boxing match against Jorge Masvidal.
So it will be interesting to see if he hits the bullseye this time around! While all this does seem random to the layman, as gambling almost always is, the nature of McGregor’s bets insinuate there is a method to his madness.
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Rightfully nicknamed ‘Mystic Mac’ for predicting his own fights back in the day, the Irishman explained that he expected Holloway to win inside the first half of the fight, while Whittaker would take the W in the second half.
Logically, that is an excellent calculation, at least for the Whittaker fight as his opponent, Khamzat Chimaev hasn’t had a history of doing very well in the championship rounds.
Holloway, on the other hand, is known to be a volume puncher who likes taking fights to their bitter ends. But McGregor isn’t particularly a fan of his opponent for the evening, Ilia Topuria. So that one might just be emotions propelled by the Proper 12 talking.
To be fair, McGregor has good reasons to dislike the Spaniard. After all, Topuria is a younger version of him or has at the very least presented himself in a manner consistent with the ‘Notorious’ before he put on the boxing gloves against Floyd Mayweather.
Even Holloway agrees with that hypothesis.
Holloway bashes Topuria for stealing McGregor’s personality
Holloway isn’t holding back when it comes to UFC featherweight champ Topuria and has called him out for trying to be a “copycat” of McGregor.
Set to face off at UFC 308’s main event in Abu Dhabi, the Hawaiian isn’t fazed by Topuria’s trash talk or bold statements.
“He’s talking about me not wanting to fight, like I’m being forced into it. It’s confusing — feels like he’.s trying to get in my head.”
Topuria claims he’ll go toe-to-toe with Holloway in the center of the octagon within the first 10 seconds, but Holloway isn’t buying it.
“He’s trying to steal McGregor’s style — from his tattoos to his attitude.”
Holloway also believes the featherweight champion hasn’t earned his place to talk like that. And he might be right, at least until their main event fight comes to a close tonight.
