Paul Hughes didn’t get the desired result in his first major MMA world title fight, but he was still a winner in the big picture. At PFL Dubai, the proud Irishman pushed undefeated PFL lightweight champion Usman Nurmagomedov to his limits in their five-round title tilt this past Saturday. Hughes ultimately came up short in a hard-fought decision loss, but garnered praise throughout the MMA community for his efforts.
One voice, however, was surprisingly loud with an adverse reaction: Hughes’ fellow countryman, Conor McGregor.
Footage was released days after the title fight, capturing a moment between Hughes and Nurmagomedov in the cage. Hughes told his rival, “I’m not like this other guy. I’m my own man.” The reference was to McGregor — a heated rival of the Nurmagomedov camp — as Nurmagomedov’s coach and relative, Khabib Nurmagomedov, compared the two ahead of the bout. McGregor saw the clip and responded in deleted X posts that told Hughes, “Too right, YOU’RE NOT!” The former UFC two-division champion followed up his initial comment with more insults, telling Hughes to “get that flag off you you little know what you are c*** from up there,” referring to Hughes’ Northern Irish roots.
Hughes responded to McGregor’s comments Wednesday on Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show.”
“I wasn’t offended at all. Now, a lot of people in Ireland, especially in the north of Ireland, couldn’t be any more deeply offended about the thing he said,” Hughes said. “But I’m not actually offended or didn’t take it personally at all, because, it sounds bad, but it just seems like it’s another day in his life of just tweeting madness. It’s not like I seen that and went, ‘Oh, I can’t believe he said this about me.’ I think it’s just another day in the life for him. I just don’t hold weight to his opinion anymore as to these sorts of things.
“It’s kind of a sad thing to say that, but that’s actually just the reality of how I felt. In fact, I kind of just laughed at it when I seen it. It’s not something I’ve been thinking about all day and going, ‘Oh, this and my identity, and this and that.’ It’s like, yeah, initially I was like, ‘Don’t come at my identity. Like, that’s ridiculous.’ But then I was just like, ‘This guy, he’s on one, and I just don’t care,’ you know?”
McGregor, 36, has long been a motivator for fellow fighters from his country of Ireland and many new fighters in general, thanks to his historic rise through the sport from 2013-16. Hughes highlighted his own inspiration drawn from “The Notorious” upon his arrival in the PFL in 2024.
Hughes still admires the path McGregor paved for him and his fellow fighters, but times have undeniably changed.
“I’ve always paid Conor homage at every opportunity,” Hughes said. “I’ll always say that he’s the greatest to ever do it. Always will. I would say I’ll always believe that. But nah, man, it honestly just didn’t really bother me coming from him, because I just don’t hold that much weight to what he says anymore — which is, as I say, kind of a sad thing.”
Ireland has historically been one of the greatest and most passionate fan bases in MMA. McGregor’s rise exemplified that, as the country supported the former champion to incredible degrees, both in Ireland’s home arenas and in the U.S. for his biggest fights.
The outspoken McGregor has never been one to walk back any of the many shots he takes, and Hughes doesn’t expect that to change with him. Ultimately, at least for now, he’s not even in a place to accept a rescinding of McGregor’s insults because of their gravity beyond fighting.
“Not right now,” Hughes answered when asked if he’d accept an apology. “More so not for me, but more so for my people, from where I come from, what he said.
“Before I came on the show, I was scrolling Twitter and stuff — probably not a good idea — I kind of just realized it’s actually one of the worst possible things that you could say to a fellow Irishman. Like, in terms of how deeply insulting it can be to someone personally. Now, as I said, I don’t take much weight to it, I don’t take it deeply personal. But people from my area certainly, certainly will.
“Where I come from, Derry, has a — I don’t even know how to describe it — a very tumultuous history when it comes to Irish history, and it’s a very, very important place where a lot of important things happened,” he continued. “It would be incredibly and deeply insulting to a lot of people where I’m from to say that we’re not Irish. But I’ll not get into history. I’ve told you my thoughts on how I felt about it. I could easily have just went off on one and just came on here and said this and that, but I just don’t really care about what he says, and that’s kind of sad.”
In response to Hughes’ comments, McGregor returned to X and doubled down on his initial thoughts by posting the following, among several other insults.
It’s deplorable Sinead! No self respecting Irish man would grovel in this manner to a person who has disrespected their flag time and time again and that is a fact. A groveling weasel of the highest order! https://t.co/vEdtEHyu8T
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) January 29, 2025
DERRY IS IRELAND!
It is not true Irish behavior to grovel at the hands of someone who has disrespected your nation’s flag and is playing a game right in your face as you bow and kiss feet. I am so embarrassed for him caught like that. Hughes born in Oz raised in Derry, trains…— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) January 29, 2025
Hughes, 27, is hopeful he’ll get an immediate rematch with the champion Nurmagomedov in his next PFL appearance. However, he’s yet to return home from Dubai and is taking time to digest the scenes he just experienced.
The build-up to the pair’s first encounter had some quiet hostility behind it, though now there’s a new competitive respect, as evidenced by their post-fight chat.
Regarding the footage, Hughes was unaware the moment was being filmed and wishes it had been approached differently — not just by him, but also by the camera crew.
“To be honest, when I woke up this morning, I seen it,” Hughes said. “I think something like that is a very delicate thing, and firstly, when I seen it, I was kind of — to myself — I was like, ‘Ah, the way you’re saying that,’ the way I referred to Conor as ‘that guy’ … I didn’t even remember this happening. Obviously, I just fought five rounds. It’s just ended. I’m talking to many people. This is a short clip. There was a lot more going on than just this short clip. So when I seen that, just that little bit went out, I thought, ‘Hmm, why put that out? Why not the rest of the conversation, or why not what he was saying to me, or why not anything else?’
“I think that they knew what they were doing there 100%, and I kind of wasn’t alright with that. Because I do know that they have to heavily proof everything with the Russian side, yet they didn’t come to us with anything. I’m not making excuses. I mean, that’s what I said. As I say, my initial thoughts were like, ‘Ah, why’d you say it like that, Paul?’ Like, ‘that other guy’ kind of sounds like a dickhead thing to say.
“At the end of the day, I was just being honest in that moment,” he continued. “I am my own man, as you well know. I’m my own person. I’m just trying to be me. I’m creating my own story here. I’m doing my own thing. So, just the initial way it came across, I was like, ‘Oh, that doesn’t sound too good,’ but at the end of the day, what can I do about it? It’s after a f***ing five-round fight. It’s just a small thing that’s been clipped up and, yeah, just is what it is like.”
