While the reigning UFC featherweight champion is already reportedly receiving movie offers as his superstar profile grows, his heart remains with fighting.
“I’m not crazy about acting, but I sure am crazy about collecting,” McGregor said at a press conference on Wednesday. “When they come at me with these offers and these opportunities to get in say hello, cash a check and bounce, and also on the backdrop use it as a negotiating tool that ‘Look, Hollywood is there screaming for me,’ I’ll use every angle of it.”
McGregor will attempt to become a two-division title holder when he faces lightweight king Rafael dos Anjos in the main event of UFC 197 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on March 5. Should the Dublin native accomplish that feat, his stock figures to be even higher than it was when he knocked out pound-for-pound great Jose Aldo in 13 seconds this past December.
With that in mind, McGregor’s most grandiose aspirations remain in MMA, as he is already toying with the idea of testing the waters at 170 pounds sometime in 2016. Such ambition could limit the amount of time the “Notorious” one has to spend on pursuing activities outside the cage.
“We’ll see where it goes. I have offers on the table,” he said. “Like I said before, I truly enjoy the fight business. The fight business is my passion, not show business. I understand that you’ve got to juggle both in certain aspects of this game, but I am involved in the fight business, and I’m running the fight business.”
Thus far, McGregor has been linked to role in the Vin Diesel-produced action film “xXx: The Return of Xander Cage,” while Mark Wahlberg has approached the fighter about working together on a movie, as well.