10 Reasons Conor McGregor Would Become WWE's Franchise Player

Conor McGregor has achieved a level of stardom that transcends mixed martial arts. Saturday night saw him obliterate Eddie Alvarez to become the first man in history to simultaneously hold two UFC championships (Featherweight and Lightweight), but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

He has achieved tremendous success by becoming one of the most skilled self-promoters in combat sports history. In just a few short years, McGregor has reached Ali-like levels of magnetism to make himself one of the most talked-about athletes on the planet. Like Ronda Rousey before him, McGregor has become a genuine MMA celebrity, and even an early-year loss to Nate Diaz couldn’t slow his rise.

It looks like he’s firmly on WWE’s radar. Triple H was photographed watching Conor’s fight at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, and if the rumours are correct, WWE are highly interested in bringing McGregor in for an appearance.

Nobody should be surprised by this. McGregor has no professional wrestling experience, but his success isn’t just based on his mean left hand. The bulk of Conor’s popularity comes from his persona, talking skills, and unbridled star power: three qualities that’d serve him very, very well in the world of sports entertainment.

It’d take a miraculously successful set of negotiations to bring him to WWE for longer than a single appearance, but if it happened, McGregor would be a guaranteed hit. Here are 10 reasons why Conor McGregor would become WWE’s franchise player.

For all the talk of how WWE’s in-ring action has been “dumbed down” to a cleaner, safer style since the Attitude Era, changes to the way wrestlers speak have been just as stark. Superstars just aren’t as captivating on the microphone as they used to be, and while much of this has to do with WWE’s heavy scripting, we’re not exactly living through a golden age of charisma either.

Aside from Chris Jericho and Paul Heyman, there’s nobody in WWE that can legitimately hold a candle to the all-time greats. Wrestling promos have become flat, sterile, and uninspiring: traits usually associated with MMA fighters, whose primary role isn’t to hold a crowd’s attention on the microphone, but put on a good fight.

Conor McGregor is the exception. He’s not only the best promo in MMA (by a landslide), but if he were to walk into WWE today, there’d only be one or two wrestlers who could legitimately challenge his microphone prowess. When he talks, people listen, and his soundbites and quotables are just as important to his act as his elite fighting skills.

You can’t become WWE’s franchise player if you can’t talk, and nobody talks like Conor McGregor. He’d obviously need to tone the language down, but that shouldn’t be much of a challenge, even if he’d likely have Kevin Dunn & co. pulling their hair out for the first few weeks.