Scan the all-time rankings of mixed martial artists by any number of measures -- whether looking at total days reigning as a UFC champion, FightMatrix's computer rankings or ESPN's ranking of the top 10 fighters of the 21st century from two years ago -- and one name you won't find is arguably the biggest name in the sport: Conor McGregor.
The Irish superstar's championship résumé is strangely thin for someone who looms so large over the sport. McGregor became UFC's first simultaneous champion in two divisions when he held both the featherweight and lightweight crowns in 2016, but he never defended either belt. Moreover, his time as a dual champion was measured in weeks, not months or years like those who came after, and his overall time as champ (861 days) doesn't even crack the UFC's top 25 all-time.
McGregor's place in his sport's history is measured in something much bigger than title reigns or championship defenses. In terms of cultural impact, it's implausible to argue anyone has been bigger in the world of MMA than the man who will make his return to the Octagon this weekend for the first time in five years, facing Max Holloway in a welterweight main event at UFC 329 in Las Vegas.
Countless words have been written over the years to try to encapsulate McGregor's impact on MMA. Instead of more words, how about we let his numbers do the talking? Here are six charts that explain how McGregor elevated the sport's exposure, how his influence extends beyond the cage and how he compares to top athletes from other sports.
For one thing, McGregor helped establish the UFC as a pay-per-view powerhouse on the same level as boxing. According to data from Tapology.com, some events eclipsed the 1 million-PPV-buy barrier before McGregor came along -- including UFC 91 (Randy Couture vs. Brock Lesnar) in 2008 and especially UFC 100 in 2009. But MMA events did not consistently reach the million-buy level -- at least not the same way as boxing megafights featuring names like Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao did -- until McGregor fought José Aldo at UFC 194 in 2015. That set off a stretch in which every single event featuring McGregor cleared 1 million PPV buys. The UFC has moved on from the PPV model since McGregor last fought, so Saturday will be his opportunity to set the standard in a whole new way.
Among MMA headliners, only Lesnar and Ronda Rousey were capable of driving multiple such blockbuster events -- but even they did it only a combined six times (Lesnar had four; Rousey two). McGregor fights reached 1 million buys nine straight times before his current hiatus. And there's no doubt he will generate another huge streaming windfall this weekend.
The gravitational pull of McGregor's popularity made him one of the richest athletes in the world, on a scale far beyond any MMA fighter before or since.
Each year, Forbes tracks the highest-paid athletes in the world, and in data going back to 2012, McGregor is the only mixed martial artist to rank among the top 10 on a list that typically is headed by stars of soccer (Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi) and other mainstream sports (LeBron James, Shohei Ohtani, Roger Federer). McGregor made the list twice -- No. 4 in 2018 (making $99 million) and No. 1 in 2021 ($180 million).
It is highly uncommon for a combat sports athlete to earn a place on these top-10 lists. Of the 150 total slots available since 2012, only 13 (or 8.7%) have belonged to either a boxer or mixed martial artist.
For McGregor to get on the list at all -- much less rank No. 1 -- speaks to his uncommon ability to draw eyeballs and attention to himself and his sport. This illustrates the company McGregor has kept beside names such as Mayweather, who was No. 1 all four times he was on the list. McGregor's 2017 bout against Mayweather was the second-most-watched PPV event in history (trailing only Mayweather-Pacquiao), despite boxing not even being McGregor's natural fighting discipline. And in 2021, McGregor's total earnings (per Forbes) became the third highest in a year by a combat sports athlete, trailing only Mayweather in 2015 and 2018.
It's also notable how McGregor made the highest-paid-athlete rankings. When he ranked No. 1 on the 2021 list, a stunning 87.8% of his earnings came from endorsements and other business income, not winnings in the Octagon. At the time, he owned a majority stake in an Irish whiskey brand he co-founded. McGregor sold his stake in Proper No. Twelve in 2024, and after he was found liable of sexual assault that year, the brand stopped using his name and likeness in promotional materials.
Aside from McGregor's 2021 and 2018 entries, no other combat sport athlete on a Forbes top 10 earned even 10% of their total pay through outside business interests. That type of non-salary income is more normal in sports such as tennis, basketball and even baseball, in which endorsement potential and pop-culture penetration are built into the business model. Among fighters, it was absolutely unheard of -- before McGregor -- for an athlete to earn that much beyond their fight purses.
The name of the game for McGregor has been efficiency in both his earnings and fame. Nobody has been more economical in terms of making a great impact in a short time -- both within his fights and his outsized influence in the sport.
Let's take the most basic aspect first: Win or lose, McGregor's earnings per second of fight time are absolutely off the charts. Among the million-buy fights in Tapology's database, three took less than 60 seconds: McGregor vs. Aldo in 2015 (13 seconds), McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone in 2020 (40 seconds) and Rousey vs. Amanda Nunes in 2016 (48 seconds). Each of those fights generated more than 20,000 PPV buys per second. McGregor was also involved in five of the other seven fights that were million-buys generating at least 2,000 buys per second of fight time, with Rousey vs. Holly Holm and Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin representing the other two.
That may not have been a good thing from the perspective of a PPV buyer who paid hoping to see a longer and more competitive matchup. But from a sheer efficiency perspective, McGregor absolutely maximized his earning potential in every second he fought.
Efficiency also applies to the profile he has built over his career. The popularity and/or public interest in a given athlete can be estimated by looking at Google Trends search volume. Going back to 2004, when Google began gathering Trends data, McGregor is the most searched UFC athlete among champions who reigned at least 500 total days, by a landslide. Second-ranked Khabib Nurmagomedov doesn't even have half the interest of McGregor (49.1%) -- and one could argue that the interest Nurmagomedov does have is owed in no small part to fighting (and beating) McGregor for the lightweight title in 2018. Besides Nurmagomedov and Lesnar (40.6%), no other 500-plus-day champ commands even a quarter of McGregor's total search volume. (Anderson Silva is next at 22.3%.)
Again, McGregor has generated this interest despite reigning for fewer than 900 total days as a UFC champion, far fewer than most of the other fighters on the most-searched list. It's yet another way in which his cultural footprint far outpaces conventional measures of all-time greatness.
That is the central paradox of McGregor's career: His résumé can look underwhelming on a list of the greatest champions ever, but his impact overwhelms them all. And so, he returns this Saturday not as a reigning champion, nor at his peak, but still is the central figure in the superstar economy he helped create.