Duane Ludwig: If we lived thousands of years ago, Conor McGregor would probably be the king

One of the hottest rivalries in MMA today is the one shared by reigning bantamweight champ Cody Garbrandt, and former champ TJ Dillashaw. As Dillashaw’s coach, Duane Ludwig has been dragged into the middle of this sizzling beef, which has recently been coming to a head on The Ultimate Fighter.

On Wednesday’s edition of BJ Penn Radio, Ludwig explained to host Kinch that he has a hard time coming to grips with all the trash talk and bravado that is produced by rivalries of this kind.

“I’m not a smart person, but I need to dumb myself down in order to understand what’s going on in mixed martial arts,” he said.

Ludwig then touched on the trend of fighters doing their best to emulate MMA superstar Conor McGregor. Apparently, Ludwig has lots of respect for McGregor, but believes not everyone is cut out for McGregor’s brand of self promotion.

“Look what Conor’s been able to do,” he said. “That mother fucker might fight [Floyd] Mayweather. That is huge. I’m a Conor McGregor fan, that guy is making some big things happen. But there’s a very select few people that can pull that off, it shouldn’t be everybody acting mad and talking stupid. You know, people are trying to talk like Conor, but he doesn’t swear, he’s really articulate, he’s funny. The guy’s a genius at what he’s doing. I’m all for that. And he performs, he loves the limelight. I’m all for it. I want to see how far he can go as a human. I think if we were fucking thousands of years ago, he would probably be the king. He’d be running shit. Tell me that guy couldn’t be running a country. He’s probably running Ireland.”

Ludwig then reiterated that while he’s happy to see McGregor thrive, it’s frustrating to see so many others attempt to follow in his footsteps.

“I mean good for him, but everyone is trying to act like him and I’d like to see more respect and honor. I’d like to view this as a martial arts industry rather than just an entertainment industry with smack talk like the WWE.”

What do you think of this assessment from Duane Ludwig?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/25/2017.