Despite being away from the fight game for nearly three years now, Conor McGregor remains the face of the UFC and the sport of MMA as a whole. Naturally, this means Jake Paul wants some of that “Notorious” spotlight. Ever since he began making waves in boxing, “The Problem Child” has made it a habit of calling out the former two-time UFC champion. From supposedly sending McGregor’s team $50 million fight offers to taking shots at the Irishman’s drunken headlines and inactivity from fighting, Paul rarely ignores an opportunity to call out the MMA superstar.
To McGregor’s credit, he doesn’t often show interest in Paul’s squalling, routinely shrugging off the latter’s trash talk attempts. However, if there’s one thing the former UFC champion loves more than promoting his Proper No. Twelve whiskey, it’s tweeting and deleting. McGregor beefs with everyone and is never shy about hurling insults over on X (formerly Twitter). This was especially true in August 2023, when Paul clashed with MMA star Nate Diaz in the boxing ring. “The Notorious” clearly didn’t appreciate the fight or matchup, going off on the whole ordeal on social media, criticizing it, along with Paul’s hairline, in a series of tweets.
In April 2024, when asked about the matchup between Paul and Mike Tyson during a SiriusXM interview, McGregor was a little more diplomatic, but still showed no love for “The Problem Child” and the influencer boxing trend he helped propel. “For me, it does set a bad precedent in the industry … I would say this to the young athletes coming up, men and women. Don’t aspire to be one of these YouTube fighters,” McGregor explained (via SPORTbible), before urging future fighters to chase Olympic gold and legitimate championships, not social media clout.
