The Ultimate Fighting Championship has seen many magnificent mixed martial artists through the years. Fighters such as Tito Ortiz, BJ Penn, Chuck Liddell, George St. Pierre, Anderson Silva and Ronda Rousey have graced the Octagon but Conor McGregor seems to stand tall above all in terms of charisma and appeal as the retiring Brad Pickett believes the Irish has taken MMA to the masses.
From being a downtrodden company to a multi-billion entity, the UFC is at is peek nowadays and McGregor is a large part why the UFC is known throughout the world. Pickett, who will be hanging up his gloves as he graces the Octagon for the last time at UFC Fight Night 107 at London's O2 Arena in March, could not agree more, saying the lightweight champion managed to attract audience outside the initial UFC fan base, Mirror reported.
The numbers back Pickett's statements. In his last four fights, McGregor has raked in more than 5.7 million pay per view buys for the UFC with his UFC 202 bout against Nate Diaz ranking the highest with more than 1.6 million pay per view buys. Against, Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 where McGregor won the lightweight belt and became the first fighter in UFC history to hold two belts simultaneously, the UFC broke the gate attendance record of the Madison Square Garden with 20,427, MMA Junkie reported.
Pickett added that McGregor, who is only 28 years old, can do more for the sport of MMA which he claims has taken over boxing as the most number one combat sport in the world, stating that the UFC is the sole place to watch the best fighters unlike boxing which has many different organizations and champions for each weight division.
McGregor, who is on a hiatus, transcends outside the UFC with him still being talked about in the media even if his last fight was two months ago. He is also touted to fight Floyd Mayweather for one of the biggest bouts in the history of fight sports.
Watch the video below for McGregor's top five knockouts: