What if Conor McGregor had retired for real? What if the man had just taken that cane and walked away for good, as in forever-ever, without a backwards glance at his small army of worshipful supporters, his crestfallen opponents and most of all, at the giant haystacks of dollar bills he would be consciously spurning?

What if the Notorious had vanished?

Now, that would have been a move.

The Dublin fighter has exhibited nothing short of genius for making his voice heard in a world teeming with billions of voices desperate to be heard. So there was something immediately thrilling at the idea of old Notorious doing a Greta Garbo at the peak of his fame and popularity. The starkness of the line: “I have decided to retire young.” Who in their right mind would not be shouting: “good for you, man”?

McGregor inspires nothing if not loyalty and his many supporters have become, yup, notoriously sensitive when it comes to the depiction of their man in the legacy media. The general attitude seems to be: if you’re not with him, then you’re agin’ him.

It’s understandable but it’s too narrow a view as it doesn’t allow for the prevailing attitude of the vast majority: those who have no particular interest in MMA or appreciation of its nuances but who have nothing against McGregor either and are, in fact, taken with the cut of his jib. For the vast majority of us who didn’t pay much attention to the unstoppable rise of McGregor, his metamorphosis from television show curiosity to global phenomenon seemed to happen in a rush.

MMA in Ireland went from zero mainstream coverage to all of a sudden getting daily billings on RTÉ radio and television sports bulletins alongside the meat-and-two-veg items on the GAA and rugby. For instance, MMA went from featuring precisely not at all to a lot on these pages. The reason for that is that there is a huge audience for McGregor.

Sudden rush

And McGregor’s fans, those who were in from the start are understandably cynical when it comes to this sudden rush of appreciation for their man. But MMA fans also exhibit an element of protectiveness and insecurity about their sport and McGregor in particular; stung by those who reduce it to barbarism and irritated by breezy opinion which they see as ill-equipped to convey the level of skill and bravery required to fight at McGregor’s level. That irritation is well founded.

McGregor is probably the most famous Irish sports star on planet earth just now. He achieved that with zero recognition or interest from establishment Ireland. And so his actual fans don’t bother to hide their disdain for the mainstream.

But McGregor’s temporary period of possible-retirement contained an interesting set of questions for the establishment portrayal of MMA. I’m fairly certain that MMA would rarely – that is, never – receive any coverage in the mainstream Irish media if McGregor hadn’t become too big to ignore. So for the past year or two, there has been a grey area as to whether Irish media has been following MMA as a legitimate sport or merely following and reflecting the surge in fascination with McGregor himself.

So, what if McGregor had retired this week? In a month’s time, would the media – including this newspaper – continue to report on events in the octagon in Vegas or breathlessly repeat the latest announcement from UFC supremo Dana White? The guess here is a big fat NO.

In McGregor, MMA’s movers and shapers were blessed with a once-in-a-lifetime gem: an outsider with an instantly recognisable image and charisma who had the chops to substantiate the hyperbole when it came to fighting. He was like a gift from the heavens to MMA. Like golf and Tiger Woods at a certain time, there is McGregor and then there is the rest.

And at the heart of his statement lies the oldest tension in the fight game: the pull between the need to promote the next fight and the desire to prepare for it. That statement was nothing if not an explicit reminder that for all the adrenalin and blood-letting, MMA is as coldly commercial as the NFL or the Premier league. It’s about the money. And when it comes down to it, sports stars arguing about money and promotion is kind of . . . boring.

That’s probably why the statement was jazzed up with a kind of street-talk intended to convey the Notorious’s world-weariness at the endless promotional demands imposed upon him. He should have known better, though, than to include his line about how much he dreads having to talk to radio shows or to “some lady that deep down doesn’t give a f**k about what I’m doing but just wants some sound bites so she can get maybe get her tight little ass a nice raise, and I’m cool with that too.”

Well, that’s big a ya. Imagine the outcry if a superstar from football or basketball included a line like that in a statement.

Evolution

This week crystallised the question that many of us have been vaguely asking ourselves since McGregor’s rise. What’s MMA really about?

Is this is a moment or the true beginning of a sport which is in the very early stages of its evolution into a mass entertainment movement? Is Conor McGregor the Jack Johnson of his day? The figures indicate that many, many people adore watching MMA. That’s their prerogative. Personally, I’d rather watch Steph Curry or Joe Canning. And there seemed to me to be something irredeemably bleak about the death of Joao Carvalho in Dublin – the footage of the event, the coverage, how quickly it seems to have been forgotten.

MMA is moving at such a rate that you have to wonder if McGregor himself can fully absorb what is happening. For the brief period when he announced his retirement, it seemed as if he was true in the absolute sense to his independent streak and that he was, as Phillipe Petit put it after his Twin Towers wire-walk, prepared to “refuse his own success”.

Had he done so, it would have been truly audacious.

But no. McGregor is back in the game and good luck to him. And here’s hoping he follows the advice of the Notorious – the original, that is – Mr Christopher Wallace, a man who knew what it was:

To protect my position, my corner, my

layer

While we out here, say the Hustler’s

Prayer.

If the game shakes me or breaks me

I hope it makes me a better man

Take a better stand

Put money in my mom’s hand

Get my daughter this college grant so

she don’t need no man

Stay far from timid.

Only make a move when your heart’s

in it

And live the phrase sky’s the limit . . .