NEW YORK -- It likely went down as the line of the night on Saturday at the UFC's historic debut at Madison Square Garden. But it might as well sum up Conor McGregor's entire career.
"I'd like to take a chance to apologize to ... absolutely nobody!" McGregor said, setting off a cacophony of noise -- both supportive and derisive -- inside the legendary arena.
McGregor, fresh off of making history at UFC 205 by becoming the promotion's first fighter to hold world titles in two weight divisions simultaneously, need not seek repentance from anyone in the fight game. Not even as his behavior in recent days, from showing up late once again at Thursday's news conference to answering questions with constant profanity, has become increasingly crass for even his standards.
The world's most famous fighter took over "The World's Most Famous Arena" and made it his home on Saturday with a second-round knockout of lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez, just as he said he would do. In fact, just as he said he would do to every single fighter he has faced over 10 appearances in the Octagon since his 2013 debut -- save for a brief hiccup at welterweight against Nate Diaz in March, which he avenged four months later.
As the great Muhammad Ali used to say, it's not bragging if you can back it up. And until anyone at 145 -- where McGregor has held the UFC's featherweight title since last December -- or 155 pounds can do anything to stop him, the brazen Irish sensation has free reign to be just as "Notorious" as he wants to.
The Ali reference is apropos in this sense because McGregor is the first combat sports athlete since "The Greatest" to truly possess Ali-like qualities. No, the parallel isn't perfect, particularly from the sense of cultural significance. But when it comes to entertainment value and the bold ability to back up the endless rhetoric that acts as his shield, McGregor stands alone within his own era.
McGregor's victory over Alvarez caps a 12-month span of financial and in-cage success that tops what any fighter has done in UFC history. So on the very same night as the 23rd anniversary of the UFC, in the promotion's first appearance in the state of New York since 1997 following a well-documented battle, there was no other fighter worthy to have his face on the marquee on the brightest possible stage.
Having already supplanted his contemporaries as the greatest draw in UFC history, McGregor is now attempting to creep closer toward the idea of becoming its greatest fighter, as well. No, he's not there yet. To many, he might not even be close. But he's building a resume that each day is becoming harder to quantify with an asterisk like "what happens when he finally faces an elite wrestler with a full training camp?" Those days, of penalizing his arrogance and lack of a complete game with qualifiers, is nearing completion.
Are there fighters in both weight classes in which McGregor holds titles that you could legitimately favor to beat him tomorrow? No question. Unbeaten lightweight contender Khabib Nurmagomedov, who looked like a beast in mauling Michael Johnson on Saturday before calling out McGregor, is one of them.
But the more he continues to make the kind of outrageous claims that he's talented and just crazy enough to actually back them up inside the cage -- while doing so in such spectacular and effortless fashion -- the closer McGregor comes to mixed martial arts immortality.
Like Ali, he spoke of his all-time greatness from the very beginning, long before any of us -- or possibly himself -- was truly in a position to believe it. But there's no longer room to deny it.
McGregor couldn't have said it any better Saturday after the fight when he proclaimed, "You've got to have size, reach, length -- you've got to have attributes to defeat me." One of those attributes is audacity, and right now he has no peer.
For that, McGregor need not apologize. As long as he continues to back it up, the UFC is his world and the rest of us are just bystanders.