LAS VEGAS — My last attempt at finding any traveling Irish came the morning after Saturday’s unsatisfying UFC 329 main event.
With Dublin set to play Kerry in the popular All-Ireland football semi-final at a sold-out Croke Park, I figured I’d find some Gaels flocking to the few watering holes that usually show the game.
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My first stop at Rí Rá in Mandalay Bay proved unfruitful. The Irish barman quickly informed me there was no need for them to put the game on.
“Look around, there’s nobody here,” he told me before pointing me in the direction of The Irish Spot on Tropicana Avenue.
When I arrived at The Irish Spot, the padlock on the door confirmed my worst fear — they hadn’t even opened. A quick cash deal with my Uber driver brought me back up Tropicana to McMullan’s, where I saw two young men in Dublin jerseys watching the game on their phone as the Wimbledon final took pride of place on the big screens.
They were deflated after being in attendance at UFC 329 the night before, witnessing first-hand as Conor McGregor’s divisive comeback bout ended in just 69 seconds after the Irish star appeared to injure his knee in the opening seconds of his first fight since 2021.
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“People in Ireland don’t want to talk about how good he was back then,” one of them said. “I went on my phone this morning and they’re lapping this up.”
“What a fall from grace,” he conceded.
Conor McGregor failed to land a single significant strike in his UFC 329 comeback bout.
(Chris Unger via Getty Images)
The word from Ireland all week was that there had been little talk of McGregor’s return against Max Holloway outside of online articles. During his heyday, there would be regular news bulletins and radio spots giving updates pertaining to various fight weeks.
“You wouldn’t even know it was on,” my dad declared in a text message on Friday night.
Waking up on fight day, an Irish colleague sent me links to the various media highlights that were circulating back home.
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The Irish Independent’s preview piece by Philip O’Connor claimed the Irishman was seeking redemption with his return to the Octagon.
“McGregor is fighting for something that cannot be won in the cage — the redemption of his shredded reputation,” he wrote.
The same publication ran a piece titled “Everything that’s wrong with Conor McGregor’s return to the cage” written by Tanya Sweeney, highlighting his long list of controversies since his last outing in 2021.
On the back of a statement made by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre earlier in the week, former Irish head of state, Leo Varadkar, demanded that U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, Ed Walsh, apologize for posing for pictures in McGregor’s public house, The Black Forge Inn.
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In an interview featured on Matt Cooper’s “Paths to Power” podcast, Varadkar urged Walsh to invite Nikita Hand — who successfully sued McGregor in a civil court for sexual assault in November 2024 — to his Phoenix Park residence. The story was carried across several national Irish outlets, including extra.ie.
After recording Uncrowned’s post-fight show in Las Vegas on Saturday night, two friends of the show made their way into the production room.
“It was like walking in a funeral procession,” said one, describing the feeling of leaving T-Mobile Arena in the aftermath of McGregor’s headlining bout.
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“It was pretty quiet, but then once we got outside we could hear people singing, ‘Ohh, Paddy the Baddy,’ so things picked up a bit.”
Another friend from elementary school had been waiting for a McGregor fight to come around ever since his third meeting with Dustin Poirier. For years, he would relentlessly text me asking if I had heard anything about a potential return, and once UFC 329 was made official, he wasted no time booking the trip, bringing his whole family to Sin City for a three-week vacation which culminated with the UFC event.
“It was a weird night,” he wrote to me after the event. “It was kind of like being at an Ireland match, but with only a few Irish people there.”
There was notable reaction to McGregor’s ill-fated return to competition in Monday’s Irish tabloids. (Because the fight took place on Sunday morning back home, reaction coverage was ruled out of Sunday’s pages.)
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Both The Star and the Mirror — two of Ireland’s biggest papers — featured the same story by Robert Hynes, carrying the headline, “Fighting Mac the tears.” It was plugged on the front page of The Star with the sub heading, “McGregor’s crocked out,” and “No leg to stand on” on the front page of The Mirror.
Hynes’ article focused on the disappointing showing for the Dubliner, the record-breaking gate the event generated and the uncertainty surrounding his future.
Another story by O’Connor ran in both The Irish Independent and the Evening Herald, and was written in a similar vein with, “McGregor comeback ends in anti-climax,” used as the header.
“Time will tell if he will attempt to make another return,” wrote O’Connor, “but what is certain is that MMA is a rapidly evolving sport that waits for no man, and the man who once ruled the roost may well have to accept that his time at the top is over.”
