Think you know everything about Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather, who meet in a pay-per-view boxing match Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas? Think again.
Here are five things to know about McGregor, the UFC lightweight champion from Dublin Ireland:
McGregor was almost a soccer star
Before a young McGregor turned to boxing and martial arts, he wanted to play soccer. He grew up a fan of Manchester United and played the sport as a youth for a local club. But McGregor wanted to learn how to defend himself. So he turned to mixed martial arts and began training as a boxer at age 12. He started his professional MMA career with the now defunct Cage of Truth Series in 2008, winning his first two fights before losing his third. He was so distraught after the defeat, he considered leaving the sport, but met with John Kavanagh of the Crumlin Boxing Club who talked him into returning to the gym.
“The Secret”
McGregor was highly influenced by Rhonda Byrne’s “The Secret,” a best-selling self-help book published in 2006. The book is based on the belief your thoughts and words can impact your fortunes. It has sold 50 million copies world-wide. McGregor thought it was nonsense the first time he saw the DVD version, but decided to put its principles into practice. He and his girlfriend, Dee Devlin, first began believing for a good parking space and then progressed to believing in success, wealth and championships. You can hear the teachings of the “The Secret” when McGregor explains his secret to success. “I’m telling them what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it and I do it and the train just keeps rolling from there,” he said recently.
He was attached to his grandfather’s hat
He doesn’t consider himself superstitious, but for 10 years McGregor carried his grandfather’s hat with him in a tote bag. “I’ve had it literally since I started combat sport,” McGregor said in the RTE Documentary “Notorious,” which was filmed before the hat was stolen. “He died and left a few things and one of the things he used to always wear was hats. I’ve had it 10 years I’d say and it’s been in every gear bag.”
McGregor was on welfare before joining the UFC
McGregor cashed a public assistance check for about $235 the week before his first UFC fight on April 6, 2013. He had given up his job as an apprentice plumber to focus solely on a mixed martial arts career, which up to that point hadn’t earned much of an income. McGregor knocked out Marcus Brimage at Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm Sweden in his UFC debut and earned a $60,000 bonus for the “Knockout of the Night.” Four years later, he will earn upwards of $75 million for his fight with Mayweather.
McGregor worked as a plumber apprentice
Before launching his pro MMA career, McGregor served as an apprentice plumber in Dublin. His father, Tony, wasn’t happy when Conor told him “this isn’t for me” and was leaving plumbing to start fighting. “It caused conflict between us,” McGregor has said, “but through time, through hard work, through dedication, he was on board with it. Now I have retired him. Now he doesn’t have to work. It’s a beautiful thing to give back to my family.”
The elder McGregor says his son wasn’t a very reliable plumber. “We had terrible trouble getting him to show up,” Tony McGregor has said. “He wasn’t in to it all. It was a real nightmare to try and get him to go.”
Five things to know about Floyd Mayweather, the undefeated boxing great:
Floyd Mayweather’s birth name wasn’t Junior
He came into this world as Floyd Joy Sinclair. But he always has been known as Floyd Mayweather Jr., after his father, Floyd Sr. The younger Mayweather had a tough upbringing with four siblings sharing a tiny bedroom in Grand Rapids, Mich. Floyd Sr. introduced his son to violence before boxing. The elder Mayweather was shot in the leg in 1978 while holding Floyd Jr. and eventually would spend time in jail for cocaine trafficking. Father and son had a tumultuous relationship until reconciling in 2013.
Mayweather and Justin Bieber are really good friends
Bieber has participated in Mayweather’s ring walk to some of his biggest fights. And they’re actually real friends. They have vacationed and taken spa trips together. Bieber is 17 years younger than Mayweather, but they share a lot in common. Bieber made $80 million in 2014 alone, while Mayweather earned $105 million.
The Money Team
Founded in 2012, the Money team — or TMT — isn’t just a moniker. It’s a full-scale retail business that sells shirts, hats, tank tops, hoodies, iPhone cases and wristbands. Mayweather seldom appears publicly without wearing some sort of branding that features “TMT.” His business, which also includes Mayweather Promotions, has expanded to the “TBE Collection” as in “The Best Ever.” He has also applied to trademark “TMT50” and “TBE50” for his upcoming fight with McGregor. “Why would I wear somebody else’s brand?” Mayweather said recently. “Nike had to start from somewhere. Adidas had to start from somewhere. Puma had to start from somewhere. I’m going to build TMT from the ground up. If I wear anybody else’s brand, I have to wear my brand first.”
Mayweather got through his 2012 jail stint by reading letters
Mayweather spent two months in the Cooke County Jail in 2012 after pleading to a misdemeanor domestic battery charge. He spent his time in a maximum security cell away from the general population. “When I was in that cell doing time, how I got through it was by everybody writing me, my daughter’s mother writing me, Leonard [Ellerbe] writing me, Al [Haymon] checking on me,” Mayweather said, also mentioning his publicist Kelly Swanson. “I was doing time in max. I learned there’s nothing like freedom. I just wanted to touch a tree and walk through the park.”
No athlete thanks the media more than Floyd Mayweather
Floyd Mayweather may not have always gotten great press from those critical of his personal life and boxing style. But he always goes overboard thanking the media for its involvement in any of his big fights. “I don’t care if you wrote a good story about me or a bad story about me, you wrote about me,” Mayweather said during a tour stop in Brooklyn. “Keep my name out there and keep me alive. As long as people who love me know who I am, I don’t care what they say.”