Sean O’Malley looked at the entire history of this sport, every champion and every pay-per-view poster, and decided there’s exactly one name in the top tier. According to NDTV Sports, O’Malley called Conor McGregor the “Only Insanely Big Superstar In The Sport.”
I want to argue with him. I really do. Arguing is my whole job. But I’ve been staring at this for a day and I can’t find the hole in it.
The timing matters, too. O’Malley said this in the same week McGregor’s camp was still doing damage control after UFC 329. John Kavanagh told Ariel Helwani that McGregor got hurt on a kick he’d planned as his opening move, one he’d thrown, in Kavanagh’s words, “a thousand times” in training. Kavanagh also went out of his way to swat down the theory that McGregor walked in already banged up. “Zero injury,” he said. “There was absolutely no injury.” He even claimed McGregor was healthier for this one than for his last few.
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Think about what that tells you. The man got hurt, the night ended in the worst way possible, and the conversation a week later is still about him. His coach is on the record defending his health. A bantamweight contender is out here building him a statue. That’s the gravitational pull O’Malley is talking about. When McGregor loses, the sport stops to process it. When most champions win, the sport checks the next fight on the card.
The Bench Is Old
Here’s where O’Malley’s point gets uncomfortable for the UFC. Dovy (@DovySimuMMA) posted a list on X that read like a retirement community sign-in sheet. McGregor is 38. Alex Pereira is 39. Kamaru Usman is 39. Justin Gaethje is 37. Israel Adesanya is 37. Alexander Volkanovski is 38.
That’s a list of real stars. Pereira has the aura. Adesanya had the dance moves and the anime references. Usman had the run. Volkanovski is one of the best featherweights ever to lace up gloves. None of them is McGregor-level famous, and every one of them is closer to the broadcast booth than to their debut.
Spinnin Backfist answered that list with one line, reminding everyone that Joshua Van is 24. Fair. Van is the kind of name you want on that list as the counterweight. But being young and good is the entry fee. It’s a long road from there to being the guy your uncle who doesn’t watch MMA asks you about at Thanksgiving.
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The Guy Saying It Wants the Job
The funniest part of this whole thing is who’s doing the talking. O’Malley is the closest thing the current roster has to a McGregor-style personality: the hair, the walkouts, the confidence, the willingness to say the quiet part on a podcast. And he’s busy chasing a title shot.
He told Helwani that Daniel Cormier slid into his Instagram DMs after leaving O’Malley’s name out of the post-fight conversation about Petr Yan’s next opponent. According to O’Malley, Cormier told him, “Hey, I do think that you should fight for the title.” O’Malley played it cool and said he doesn’t take anything personal, even admitting he used to feel Cormier “kind of wanted to see me lose a little bit.” That’s the most reality-TV sentence of the week, and I mean that as a compliment.
O’Malley also said he was “honored” to watch Yan and Merab Dvalishvili fight for what he framed as the greatest bantamweight of all time. That fight is exactly why his McGregor take lands. Two elite fighters, a legitimate all-time stakes matchup, and it still doesn’t move the needle outside the bubble the way one McGregor press conference did. Skill doesn’t make you famous. Chaos plus skill plus a microphone makes you famous, and only one guy ever hit all three at full volume.
So when O’Malley says McGregor stands alone, I hear two things. One, he’s correct. Two, he’s quietly pointing at the empty chair and telling the UFC he’d like to sit in it. You can’t call McGregor untouchable unless you’ve measured yourself against him first.
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My Take
O’Malley is right, and the UFC should be nervous that he’s right. The biggest name in the sport is 38 and coming off a brutal injury at UFC 329. The next tier is almost entirely 37 to 39. The young talent is real, but nobody under 30 is selling out arenas on personality alone yet.
If O’Malley wants to prove he’s the exception, the path is sitting right in front of him. Cormier already told him he deserves the Yan fight. Get the fight, win the fight, then cut the promo that makes people outside the sport care. Until somebody does that, McGregor keeps the crown even from a hospital bed.
