Conor McGregor, Cub Swanson and more: 5 UFC fighters who totally pulled off odd press conferences

While the allure of the UFC is largely based around the action that goes down inside the octagon, the promotion’s biggest events have always been helped by the hype behind them. Press conferences, both before and after big fights, are part and parcel of that.

Over the years, though, we’ve seen a number of weird occurrences in the UFC’s press conferences, with some fighters behaving in genuinely bizarre ways. Most of the time, these fighters went on to some mixed results in the octagon, leaving some fans to question their mindset coming into their bouts.

With that in mind, here are five UFC fighters who totally pulled off odd press conferences.

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#5. Conor McGregor – UFC 246

It’s arguable that former UFC lightweight and featherweight champion Conor McGregor has more memorable press conference moments than any other fighter in the promotion’s history.

His trash-talking antics, often aimed at fighters he wasn’t even about to face like Jeremy Stephens and Donald Cerrone, have entered into UFC legend. The incident that saw him launch plastic bottles at opponent Nate Diaz prior to their 2016 rematch was truly wild.

However, it’s arguable that McGregor’s oddest behavior in a press conference came prior to his eventual fight with Cerrone, which took place in January 2020.

Given that ‘The Notorious’ and ‘Cowboy’ had been involved in a heated verbal exchange back in 2015, fans expected fireworks between the two at their pre-fight press conference, but those fireworks simply didn’t happen.

Instead, McGregor was uncharacteristically respectful, stating that “so much had changed” since his first exchange with Cerrone. He went on to state how much respect he had for ‘Cowboy’ before predicting that while blood would be spilled in their fight, “it would not be bad blood.”

Remarkably, the Irishman didn’t even attempt to stare his opponent down for the cameras, with the two men instead posing together like co-stars in a Hollywood movie.

Quite what prompted McGregor to behave in such a respectful way remains a mystery of sorts, but it clearly worked for him as he went on to stop Cerrone with a blitz of strikes in under a minute.

Since then, unsurprisingly, ‘The Notorious’ has gone back to his trash-talking ways.

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#4. Cub Swanson – UFC Fight Night: Grasso vs. Araujo

This weekend sees Cub Swanson make his debut in the UFC’s bantamweight division after spending well over a decade battling as a featherweight. However, if fans expected to learn anything about ‘Killer Cub’ and his move to 135lbs in this week’s pre-fight press conference, they were mistaken.

Instead, in a truly bizarre scene, Swanson arrived to media day wearing dark glasses and refused to say a single word about the way he’d prepared for his bout with Jonathan Martinez.

To make matters stranger, the California-based veteran actually used teammate Dan Argueta as his mouthpiece when it came to questions posed to him, with Argueta suggesting that Swanson wanted to “test him” and see if he could answer things correctly.

Argueta then went on to detail some of Swanson’s plans for the fight, including stating that he was aiming for a first-round knockout, all while ‘Killer Cub’ sat stoically without moving a muscle.

Whether Swanson was playing a game, wanted to bring more attention to his bout with Martinez, or has simply gone off the deep end remains a mystery for now. Safe to say, his performance stands as one of the weirdest in the history of the UFC’s press conferences.

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#3. Kevin Lee and Michael Chiesa – UFC ‘Summer Kickoff’

When the UFC announced their ‘Summer Kickoff’ press conference in 2017, nobody expected that lightweights Kevin Lee and Michael Chiesa would end up stealing the show.

After all, the press conference featured fighters who were set to be in action across multiple events that summer, including superstars like Daniel Cormier, Jon Jones, Amanda Nunes, Justin Gaethje and Holly Holm.

However, Lee had evidently decided that rather than behave in a respectful manner – as he’d always done prior – he’d attempt to channel his inner Conor McGregor.

Arriving wearing a loud, open shirt, bandana and yellow shades, ‘The Motown Phenom’ immediately started to talk trash when he was given the chance. The mere mention of the mother of his upcoming opponent Chiesa turned out to be a step too far.

‘Maverick’ instantly snapped, hurling expletives at Lee while leaping to his feet. Seconds later, the two lightweights exchanged blows and had to be separated.

Whether the situation was planned in order to put more spotlight on their clash – as some fans suspected – remains unknown. If that was the case, it definitely worked. Literally nobody expected such bizarre behaviour from a pair of fighters who had usually been pretty calm.

In the end, it was Lee who got the last laugh. He submitted Chiesa in the first round of their fight – all in front of his mother, who was indeed in attendance.

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#2. Dominick Cruz – UFC 207

While the majority of odd performances from fighters in the UFC’s press conferences have come prior to big fights, it was Dominick Cruz’s behavior after his defeat to Cody Garbrandt in 2016 that really stunned observers.

Cruz suffered his first defeat in nearly a decade at the hands of ‘No Love’, losing his bantamweight title in the process. Many people were questioning quite how ‘The Dominator’ would react to the loss.

Few people expected what they actually got, though, which was Cruz – wearing a smart suit and dark glasses to hide the damage he’d taken in the octagon – refusing to sit down and waxing lyrical not only about the fight, but on life in general.

In one of the most fascinating insights into the mind of an elite MMA fighter that fans had ever been given, Cruz stated that he’d “enjoyed every second” of the bout with Garbrandt. He then paid massive tribute to his foe, stating that he had a “good heart.”

After discussing exactly what’d gone wrong for him in the fight, ‘The Dominator’ went on to state that he’d have to find positives in the loss, before admitting that “part of life is losing” and it was about how he could come back from his defeat.

Cruz’s performance at the press conference wasn’t controversial or bizarre, but it was still strange to see a fighter talk in such a way. In the eyes of many, it was refreshing, too.

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#1. Dana White, Kevin Holland and Daniel Rodriguez – UFC 279

It’s arguable that the most bizarre press conference in UFC history didn’t come because a single fighter decided to behave in an odd way. Instead, UFC 279’s pre-event conference was weird because, according to Dana White, all of the fighters involved behaved oddly, albeit not in the public eye.

The fans and media in attendance expected to hear from the likes of Khamzat Chimaev, Nate Diaz, Tony Ferguson and Li Jingliang about their upcoming fights. So, everyone was stunned when the only two fighters to emerge onto the stage were welterweights Kevin Holland and Daniel Rodriguez.

Once the two men exchanged some lighthearted insults and had their faceoff, a brief delay occurred before White announced that the rest of the press conference was cancelled, apologizing and stating that “this has never happened in the history of this company.”

So what happened? It later emerged that there had been a number of backstage altercations between the fighters and their various camps, apparently involving physical contact with numerous objects being thrown.

Reportedly, the two fighters most involved were Chimaev and Holland, who – at that point – weren’t even scheduled to face one another!

White went onto claim that it could’ve been dangerous for the press conference to go ahead; hence it being scrapped before it’d really begun.

While the truth of what went down backstage has still not been fully confirmed, one thing is definitely for certain: UFC 279’s press conference was the most odd in the promotion’s history, even if it could’ve been crazier had it actually gone ahead.