A weird web: Conor McGregor and the Olympics

Conor McGregor and the Olympics surely make an odd pair, especially with MMA not yet being a part of the Games. But did the Irishman almost compete in the sporting extravaganza? An old tweet by the UFC star hints that he may have had the intention.

What Conor McGregor tweets is often between him and his phone's keypad, but curious fans wondered if this particular tweet by the MMA megastar could have a deeper, more serious meaning behind it - especially since it has not been deleted in the years since.

In June 2020, McGregor announced yet another retirement from the sport, citing frustration over clashes with the UFC amid the pandemic. In August, he spoke about the Tokyo Olympics set to take place in 2021 and listed out the sports he was skilled in.

"One year from today the Tokyo Olympics will see competition in sports I know well: judo, wrestling, karate, taekwondo, and boxing," he said. "This happens if we are past this virus by then, we all must do our part!"

To an unsuspecting onlooker who has not followed McGregor's antics throughout his career, the tweet would seem like an innocent anticipation for the event. However, keen-eyed fans, who know how the former UFC double champion loves to hide subtle hints about his future plans in his tweets and comments, began wondering if McGregor was planning on participating himself.

"Are you competing?" one Twitter user wrote. "Are you saying you will compete for Ireland?" said another.

MMA has seen many former Olympians turn to the sport and achieve great accolades. Daniel Cormier, Henry Cejudo, and Ronda Rousey carried their medal-winning calibers into the UFC octagon and pulled off great feats for as long as their time lasted.

Between the retirement announcement and McGregor's tendency to tread into previously uncharted territories, it did not seem like the most outrageous idea, especially if one looked back at what Dana White had previously said on the matter.

In a UFC Unfiltered interview in 2016, the UFC CEO stated that he was striving to get MMA into the Olympics within the next "four or five years" at most.

"My team has been working on that for a long time. [For] four or five years, we’ve been working on it. It’s going to happen. It’s eventually going to happen. It is just a matter of when and how many resources we want to put behind it." The timeline matched. Fans were well within their rights to hope for the best. Crazier things have happened. But that was not to be. It was simply another well-meaning, cryptic Conor McGregor tweet.

McGregor ended up staying in the UFC, definitely not retiring and proceeded to fight twice and lose to Dustin Poirier on both occasions. He even managed to break his leg and go into a three-year hiatus from which he is yet to come out. The long-anticipated fight with Michael Chandler was officially announced for UFC 303 after months and months of speculation, but the Irishman pulled out of it due to a broken toe.

No one really knows when he will be back, including the UFC brass, and all fans can seemingly do at the moment is feel bad for Michael Chandler.

Does MMA belong in the Olympics?

Should MMA be an Olympic sport or not? This long-argued topic of debate has garnered different opinions over the years from different personalities. Once vividly ostracized as "cage fighting", MMA has gained considerable popularity in recent years, thanks to the effort and contribution of promotions like UFC, PFL, Bellator, ONE Championship, and so on.

Often endorsed by some of the biggest celebrities and public figures around the world - from Sydney Sweeney to Mark Zuckerberg - It is now an almost mainstream sport with millions of viewers worldwide. And still, it is not an Olympic sport yet. There were rumors that MMA would be included at the 2024 Summer Olympics, now that even break dancing is part of the roster. However, that did not quite happen.

But it very much deserves to be in the Olympics, according to many MMA personalities, including Dana White and Joe Rogan.

After 2016's comment, White once again addressed the matter in a 2022 Q&A chat with Laura Sanko ahead of UFC 275, albeit with far less enthusiasm. Answering a fan's question on the matter, White said, "I think it should be an Olympic sport already. It's not my job. It's not what I'm looking to do. I'm not pushing to turn this thing into an Olympic sport."

White added that he believes adding MMA to the list of sports would solve one of the biggest problems the Olympics has been facing in recent years - lack of viewership. "You want viewers? Put MMA in the Olympics," White said.

Joe Rogan was also of the idea that MMA is close to getting included in the Olympics back in 2018.

Despite everyone's high hopes, there is yet to be any concrete discussion about adding MMA to the Olympic Games. Not only does its reputation of being too brutal and violent work against the sport, but it is also still not legal in several countries. On top of that, at least 70 countries would need to be participating, for it to become an Olympic sport, which at the moment seems unlikely.

The 2024 Summer Olympics will feature boxing, judo, taekwondo, and wrestling among combat sports, but no karate. It was removed from the Olympic bids after a successful debut at Tokyo 2020 because organizers thought "the sport lacked entertainment value and the ability to attract a younger audience," per Reuters.