Conor McGregor psyching himself up backstage for fight at UFC 189 is intense

There aren’t many more enigmatic and real (and whatever other adjectives you want to use) personalities in the sporting world than Conor McGregor.

Both inside and out of the Octagon, he is constantly lively and constantly wears his heart on his sleeve.

Casting our minds back to the July of 2015 when McGregor was still in his pomp as a fighter. At the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, he fought the stand-in opponent Chad Mendes.

Not taking anything away from the man from California, but it was the champion at the time Jose Aldo who was originally supposed to meet McGregor in Sin City.

When ready to walkout, the Notorious muttered the following warning signs: “Too much power, too clean, he’s too small, too clean, too much distance, too much range, too much confidence.”

Then, it was time for him to descend upon the Octagon and his eery look directly into the camera lens could give the average person nightmares in all honesty.

Nothing about Conor McGregor was fake pic.twitter.com/0eBcRKenYf

The walk out from McGregor was serious. It was intense. It had UFC fans feeling something they’d never felt before.

There was plenty of controversy surrounding Aldo and his exit from the bout, but McGregor still had an opponent and he won out in Vegas. The interim UFC featherweight title was on the line and in the second round, McGregor knocked out Mendes to claim it.

The trash talk and McGregor’s oozing personality continued going into the fight. Afterwards, he revealed that mid-fight he was keeping up the pressure with his words as well as his fighting. “I told him you’re in with a different animal now.”

Fast forward to December of that year and the fight that was supposed to take place eventually went down. Aldo had