Conor McGregor is the undisputed king of the box office when it comes to mixed martial arts. Of the 10 most bought pay-per-view events in UFC history, McGregor has fought in 8 of them, including each of the top 6.
Which is why the docuseries “McGregor Forever” was such a highly anticipated event for fight fans. It marked the 2nd documentary following the Irish superstar, after 2017’s “Notorious” which chronicled his rise to MMA stardom.
Camera crews were given unprecedented access inside McGregor’s training camps, backstage at events, into his home and more. Which is why fight fans who’ve been following the 35 year old’s career will be left largely disappointed.
For all the unfiltered access, and exclusive interviews and insights, one would expect to have learned something new about McGregor’s life. Instead, viewers are essentially retold stories they already know, only through the rose coloured glasses of the Notorious one’s PR team.
The first documentary followed McGregor up until the Nate Diaz portion of his career. So it made sense for this one to pick up heading into the Khabib showdown. While it would have been nice to have seen a portion of the first episode dedicated to the Mayweather fight, and the subsequent financial fallout, it’s not surprising that producers decided to keep things focused on MMA instead.
The 4 episode series is superbly edited, and flows well between episodes. However even those who have never taken a day of film study courses will quickly pick up on the fact that the crew putting this project together, was likely hoping for drastically different outcomes in his actual bouts.
With the bulk of the series focusing on Conor’s last 4 fights, three of which were losses, the series seems to be without a story to tell. A perfect Hollywood ending would have seen Conor dethrone the undefeated Khabib Nurmagomedov, defeat Poirier and likely ride off into the sunset as a triumphant hero. A story line which the directors were probably banking on playing out when they were storyboarding the series at the outset.
Unfortunately, the reality of professional sports, especially combat sports, is that things don’t always go according to script. As Mike Tyson famously quipped “everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. Something which has happened to McGregor quite a bit in his recent bouts.
Without victories to savour, and parties to chronicle, the series attempts to portray Conor as a sympathetic figure, trying to regain his former glory. They plant the seeds early and often that McGregor had injuries heading into each of his bouts, and those can be viewed as the reason he didn’t emerge victorious.
But truth be told, it’s hard to get an audience to buy into the premise that McGregor was simply the victim of circumstance when the central character is a near billionaire, with an ever growing list of “off field issues” so to speak.
Nowhere in the series do the producers dip into any of the sexual misconduct allegations, rumours of extra-marital affairs, and alleged cases of assault at various venues across the globe. While it would be naive to expect them to spend a generous amount of time on any of those topics, ignoring them altogether sways the final product from documentary, to something more akin to a 4hr+ infomercial.
Again, there’s larger factors at play here (namely McGregor’s PR team either threatening to pull access, or having built in “final cut” abilities into the contract), but glossing over all those factors does little to tell the true story of Conor. Even a cursory mention of any of the above would have been better than nothing.
Instead, viewers get to watch the Irishman sweep the pews of a church as part of his community service from the bus incident leading up to the Khabib fight. We’re also treated to a litany of scenes of him as a doting father and family man. But two things can be true at once.
Not only can McGregor be focused on being a good father and a better husband, but he can also be a flawed individual who has clearly made mistakes in the past. Showing one without the other is part of the issue of the series as a whole.
Which ties into the biggest flaw of the series itself. For a film with so much direct access to its subject, there’s very little actual commentary from McGregor himself. Editors do a phenomenal job of weaving together a progression from episode to episode, but it’s largely done with existing footage of interviews, media days, and in ring bouts.
Despite the series showing Conor sitting down and getting mic’d up in front of the camera one on one, there’s not a ton of direct commentary or substance provided beyond what most fight fans would have already seen by this point.
Asking the Dublin native tough questions point blank and hearing his perspective of things would have gone a long way towards giving a true insight into McGregor’s life. Instead it’s mostly softball questions one would expect to hear on a promotional book tour as opposed to a hard hitting “peel back the curtain” style documentary which the series initially sold itself as. Which ultimately makes the product largely skippable if you’re a viewer who consumes UFC content on a regular basis.
IMDB gave the series a 7/10, while Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 82% audience score, but both of those feel high for what the series truly brings to light. If you knew nothing about McGregor heading into your viewing of this, you’ll likely walk away satisfied.
If however you’ve followed his career with even a passing interest over the years, you’re likely to be left wanting more. One is unlikely to learn anything new about the fighter after watching the series. Those who were fans will likely remain fans. Those who didn’t like him before aren’t likely to have their minds changed by anything contained within.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Pak Roman Yurievich. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.