Conor McGregor’s championship résumé is short by many historical measures, yet his imprint on mixed martial arts extends far beyond title defenses. McGregor became the UFC’s first simultaneous two-division champion in 2016 when he held the featherweight and lightweight belts, but he never defended either title. His time as a dual champion was measured in weeks, and his overall reign as champion — 861 days — does not place him among the UFC’s top 25 all-time.
McGregor is notably absent from several all-time listings, whether comparing total days reigning as champion, FightMatrix’s computer rankings or ESPN’s ranking of the top 10 fighters of the 21st century, highlighting a contrast between traditional measures of greatness and his broader influence.
Pay-per-view figures illustrate that influence. According to Tapology.com, some UFC events reached the 1 million-buy threshold before McGregor — notably UFC 91 and UFC 100 — but the sport did not consistently hit that level until McGregor’s 2015 win over José Aldo at UFC 194. After that event, every UFC card featuring McGregor cleared 1 million PPV buys, and his fights reached that mark nine straight times before his most recent hiatus.
Among other MMA headliners, only Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey generated multiple million-buy blockbusters, doing so a combined six times (Lesnar four; Rousey two), underscoring how unusually frequent McGregor’s draws were within the sport.
McGregor’s earnings further signal his broader reach. According to Forbes, he is the only mixed martial artist to place among the magazine’s top 10 highest-paid athletes since 2012, appearing twice: No. 4 in 2018 with $99 million and No. 1 in 2021 with $180 million. Of 150 slots on Forbes’ lists since 2012, just 13 (8.7 percent) went to boxers or mixed martial artists.
McGregor also crossed combat-sport lines: his 2017 boxing match with Floyd Mayweather was the second-most-watched pay-per-view event in history, trailing only Mayweather-Pacquiao. McGregor will 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.
