Conor McGregor
It’s fascinating that McGregor’s career almost fell through multiple times before he became the sport’s biggest ever star. His mother and father feared he had no future as a fighter, so they convinced him to become an apprentice plumber. But the 17-year-old hated it and quit to pursue his passion.
However, ‘The Notorious” will to continue was tested after he lost his third pro fight by submission in just 69 seconds. Though he’d claim a quick TKO victory in his next fight, he drifted away from the sport for the better part of two years. Seeing that he was unhappy and heading down the wrong path in life, McGregor’s mother pleaded with his coach John Kavanagh to help him. After he made a personal visit to his home, McGregor agreed to refocus on his fighting career.
McGregor went on to win nine of his next 10 fights and claimed Cage Warriors featherweight and lightweight titles. But he was still making barely any money. When one of his training partners suffered a career-ending injury, he decided to call it quits too. For two weeks McGregor stopped going to the gym. A phone call one night from Kavanagh saying that the UFC wanted him to fight in nine weeks’ time changed his life forever.
McGregor infamously admitted after his debut win over Marcus Brimage that he’d still been picking up a welfare cheque just a week earlier. He had spent the last of that on a bow-tie for the press conference. But he almost instantly had become a star. He’d go on to become a two-division UFC champion. In 2018, he was named the fourth richest athlete in all of sports for that year with estimated earnings of $99 million.
