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Top 50 Conor McGregor callouts of 2016 pt. i. Photo credit Mark Blundell.

It’s been a Notorious year for the UFC, with mink wearing, title stealing, PPV record breaking superstar Conor McGregor making headlines globally.

To celebrate a fantastic 2016, MMA Plus‘ Andreas Georgiou and Stuart Rodger have collated the most comprehensive list of McGregor callouts from the past year.

Today we release 50 – 26, with the final countdown from 25 – 1 set to be published tomorrow just in time for the New Year’s festivities.

It’s been proven that everyone wants a slice of the champ champ’s pie, well here are the best, worst, funniest and down right cringy McGregor callouts of 2016.

50. Sasha Banks

What would happen if the “The Boss” met “The Notorious?” Well following McGregor’s slamming of the WWE where he branded the entire muscle bound roster a bunch of ‘messed up p–sies’, women’s wrestling standout Sasha Banks gave a feisty response.

Banks claimed: “You fight twice a year and you’re off the rest of the year. We do this every single day. So yes, bring it.

A saucy response from one of wrestling’s fastest rising superstars, but we doubt we’ll see McGregor at Wrestlemania anytime soon.

49. Dustin Fleischer

Signed to Jay Z‘s boxing label Roc Nation, 27-year-old Fleischer is looking for his big break, and he’s hoping for a little McGregor magic to accelerate that.

“The White Tiger” made a pretty valid argument, if McGregor really wanted to push for a mega-money fight with Floyd Mayweather, then Fleisher was the perfect starting point.

“I’d be your best step to step into the ring. If you beat me, then maybe you deserve a chance at Floyd. But you ain’t going to skip me and get the biggest payday in boxing bro. When Michael Jordan went into baseball, he worked his way up the minor leagues. Let’s see how you can do in the ring with another real boxer in boxing bro.”

48. Tom Breese

Tristar, Breese, McGregor
Tom Breese weighs-in to fight Cathal Pendred. Photo by Jorden Curran.

English Welterweight Breese claimed he could beat McGregor and advised the Irishman to get out of the Welterweight division saying “he has no chance” of success.

After Conor’s bloated jump up to 170lbs to face Nate Diaz, many of the division were astonished by the 145lb champion’s claims that he could vie for the Welterweight belt.

“There are many skilled fighters in this division and they are also just a lot bigger than him,” said Breese, who defeated SBG teammate Cathal Pendred in October 2015. “It would be a very bad fight for him if he took me on.”

47. Vasyl Lomachenko

Following the news that McG himself was issued a license to box in the state of California, all the big punches began calling for a piece of the PPV pie.

Two-time Olympic gold medallist and World Champion boxer Lomachenko posted a video to YouTube where he issued a call out to the UFC Lightweight champion from a payphone in Las Vegas.

The Ukrainian had been in town to watch his friends Sergei Kovalev and Alexander Gvozdik fight and took advantage of the opportunity to join the growing list of pro boxers looking for a scrap with “The Notorious.”

46. Derrick Lewis

He’s a walking, talking internet meme, Derrick Lewis has provided a heavy amount of laughs in 2016. From ESPN Body Issue to falling asleep at a post-fight presser, “The Black Beast” has proven himself to be comedy gold.

He may be a little on the tubby side, but even Heavyweights deserve a cut of that McGregor money. After defeating Damien Grabowski, the UFC Heavyweight contender joked(?) about cutting his arm off to face the Featherweight King, following the injury of Rafael Dos Anjos.

“He’s talking all that stuff… I’m gonna set my doctor’s appointment up next week and get my arm cut off a little bit. And I’ll be down to 250.”

Here’s hoping, Derrick.

45. Kevin Lee

You know it takes some b-lls to stick it to McGregor and the Irish when you’re on their turf.

That’s exactly what Lee did, following his submission win over Magomed Mustafaev at UFC Fight Night Belfast.

In the post-fight media scrum, the 24-year-old found out that McGregor was in attendence for the event and immediately channelled his inner douchebag.

“They’re all just red beards and bald heads to me.” commented Lee.

Lee insisted he would have jumped the cage if he knew the champion was present. Had he done so, he would have likely left a bemused look on McGregor’s face as he questioned; ‘who the f—….’

44. Michael Katsidis

Former WBO Lightweight Interim champion Michael Katsidis was one of the many pro boxers attempting to forge a link between themselves and McGregor in 2016.

The Australian would throw down the gauntlet to the Irishman in an interview with The Gold Coast Bulletin.

“If McGregor ‘The Notorious’ wants to come into my sport, let’s see how he goes coming up against ‘The Great.” Said Katsidis.

“The Great vs. The Notorious — that’s fight of the year right there, waiting for your call back McGregor, lets do it.”

And after all of that, if you’re still wondering who Katsidis is, well he’s most known for getting pummelled by Juan Manuel Marquez in 2010…

43. Bill Goldberg

Backing up his long time frenemy Brock Lesnar (which we will get to in pt ii), WCW superstar Goldberg branded the Irish PPV star a ‘keyboard warrior’ following his beef with various WWE superstars.

Goldberg commented: “At the end of the day, you’re kind of like a keyboard warrior unless you want to step into the guy’s gym or unless you want to do it on TV, you know, meet in the middle. I always thought that was kind of cheap, but hey, you know, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about if he actually thinks that.”

I mean, if 50-year-old Goldberg can destroy former Heavyweight champion Lesnar in under two minutes, imagine what he could do against that scrawny Irish ‘vanilla midget’?

42. American fight fan with an AK47

The FBI got involved in the personal life of the ‘champ champ’ back in February when an American fan threatened him on Twitter, brandishing an AK47 assault rifle in pictures and warning, “We use guns not fists. This ain’t Ireland.”

The threat stemmed from comments made by the Irishman about bitter rival Diaz and certain Cali neighbourhoods before their bout at UFC 196.

There’s plenty of McGregor detractors around the world, but using threats of harm with a loaded freaking weapon. DUMB!

41. Anthony Pettis

McGregor

Hindsight makes this one a little bit awkward, but nonetheless a bold claim from former Lightweight champion Pettis put the current 145lb king on blast.

“If he stays fighting I’m coming for the 145 pound strap and that 155 pound strap,” Pettis told TMZ.

It’s been an up and down 2016 for Pettis who dropped loses to Eddie Alvarez and Edson Barboza before moving to Featherweight.

Despite a good start, beating Charles Oliveira, Pettis would be defeated by Max Holloway in an interim title bout at UFC 206.

This one goes out to “Showtime.”

40. 50 Cent

Back in April while talking to The Hollywood Reporter, rapper 50 Cent backed his close friend Floyd Mayweather Jr. to take a fight with McGregor if it ever came to being offered as a straight boxing bout and that Mayweather “would kick his ass.”

Later in the year, ‘Fiddy’ would approach Dana White in a New York restaurant and further instigate the superfight by insisting the retired boxer was “deadly serious” about fighting the Irishman and urged the UFC President to make it happen.

39. Anderson SIlva

Before McGregor, Anderson Silva was the original innovator of flashy striking and a huge part of the UFC’s growth through the 2010s.

Despite being 41 and having suffered a serious leg injury, Silva and McGregor can only be described as a dream fight.

“And the challenge that I would like to have in my career would be cut down in weight and fight McGregor,” said Silva.

“He offers me a big challenge, something I’m looking for in my martial knowledge right now.”

But eventually, age (and erectile dysfunction?) catches up to every man, meaning I doubt we’ll ever see this dream contest come to fruition.

38. Olivier Giroud

Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud called out “The Notorious” one in a Rapid Fire Q&A with teammate Laurent Kosicelny for the football club’s official YouTube channel.

The French international admitted having never been inside the cage – as suspected for a typical diving softy footballer – but looked into the camera and claimed, “McGregor, anytime you want it.” But… Giroud immediately broke into laughter and admitted, “Now… I’m dead.”

When further questioned as to how long he would last in the octagon against the UFC star, he conceded “Maybe ten seconds?” Maybe he could star on the next season of Wimp2Warrior?

37. Canelo Alvarez

Okay, okay, this one might actually be merited seeing as it was McGregor who threw the first jab, criticising Canelo for “cherry-picking” his opponents.

The entire boxing world waits patiently for the potential fight between Canelo and pound-for-pound monster GGG, and I guess Conor just really wants to see them throw down.

Canelo fired back at the mixed martial artist: “If he wants to come over to this side of the world and try boxing, anytime he wants to see that it’s not as easy as he thinks.”

Raise your hand if you think Conor could last six rounds with Canelo?….

36. Randy Orton

Out of all the WWE wrestlers to throw shade at McG, this one might just be our ultimate fave.

People have been known to misspell Connor Mackregor’s name in the past, but the 12x WWE champion Randy Orton had us in stitches with his own play on words…

Yes Randy, we’re totally ‘Lovin’ It’

35. Erin Safran (Instagram girl)

Proceeding his dominant win over Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205, to become the sport’s first duel-weight champion, McGregor was in high spirits.

The champion decided to take a nice stroll around New York City to soak in his victory, and even posed for a few pictures with his fans.

Erin Safran was one of the lucky few who managed to get a snap with the new champ champ, but the events which followed took a rather embarrassing turn.

Conor went to share Erin’s photo on his own social media, but after a brief moment of joy, she soon realised that she’d been cropped out and quickly took to Twitter to take a shot at the Mac.

A cold move, but the internet sure found it funny.

34. Dominick Cruz

During an October interview with FightHub TV, the two-time UFC Bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz called out the It Factor of MMA.

“I can beat Conor McGregor. Absolutely. I know as much as McGregor, and more, about this sport than anybody and it seems the only way to beat McGregor is with your mind.”

Cruz has shown willingness to move to 145lbs and said, “I know at 145lbs, I’m extremely fast and hard to deal with.”

He’s even prepared to go to Lightweight if he had to in order to face “The Notorious”. Cruz has always been rated as one of the best P4P and a fight with Conor would be a true spectacle for the MMA purists.

33. Shane Mosely

Legendary boxer ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosely couldn’t help but join the list of pro fighters berating McGregor over a potential career as a boxer.

When asked if he would knock the Irishman out, the 45-year-old agreed, but only in a standup fight.

Credit to Mosely, he did admit that he wouldn’t be able to ‘whoop’ McGregor if the fight was to happen inside an Octagon. I guess James Toney was a testament to that equation.

32. Michael Jordan crying face

After McGregor’s defeat at the hands of Diaz in March, the internet community exploded at the downfall of the cocky superstar immediately following UFC 196. A common sight at the time was that of the Crying Michael Jordan meme superimposed onto the Irishman’s face.

Unbeknown at the time, McGregor would later go on to solidify himself in memestory, with one of the greatest one liners…. EVER (see it in tomorrow’s conclusion).

31. Vince McMahon

Talk about a sly dig, we couldn’t help but laugh at WWE’s callout of McGregor for copying the WWE Chairman Vince McMahon‘s iconic strut.

Judge for yourself, imitated or not?

30. 64-year-old muscle ups man

Changing the tone of this post, #28 on our list is actually a pretty darn cool callout by Irishman Willie O’Toole.

The 64-year-old – wishing McGregor luck for his fight with Jose Aldo – challenged the young superstar to match his muscle-ups.

Interestingly, The Mac Life founder did in fact respond, and hailed O’Toole as ‘inspiration’ as he himself struggled to match O’Toole’s expert form.

Nice one Conor, now let’s see if you can still execute those spin kicks when you’re that age!

29. Frankie Edgar

UFC Fight Night 57 edgar vs. swanson

Popular UFC veteran Frankie Edgar threw his own hat into the ring for a chance to face McGregor and did it with one of the best and inventive call outs of the year.

Unfortunately the hype came to nothing as Edgar lost in a title eliminator bout with Jose Aldo and with McGregor’s move up to 155lbs, the rest is history.

28. Jimmy Sweeney

Middleweight Bare Knuckle Boxing champion Jimmy Sweeney challenged the Mac to fight him in his own discipline back in September as he looked to prove himself as the best fighter in Ireland.

“He’s Irish and he should fight Irish style!” Said Sweeney to The Daily Sport in an exclusive interview.

“Boxing and bareknuckle boxing are pretty much the same and if he’s good enough to fight Mayweather, he should be good enough to fight me, bare knuckle.”

McGregor never responded to Sweeney (obviously), but if he was to, we’d hope it be something like this beauty…

27. Ric Flair

WOOOOOOOOO! WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair gave McGregor one of the best zings of 2016, as ole’ Space Mountain hinted towards a case of copyright infringement.

The wrestling legend sent a further tweet challenging him to fight a WWE wrestler.

Flair then continued to taunt the UFC champion saying, “Oh, you’re welcome for your gimmick.”

We love you Naitch.

26. Floyd Mayweather Sr

Perhaps bored of waiting for his son to settle the ongoing feud with McGregor, Floyd Mayweather Sr. threatened to knockout the Irishman himself, just like any good Daddy would.

“If they want me to fight him, I’ll fight him. I betcha I’ll knock his ass out. If we fighting, not with the feet and stuff like that, that’s a whole different story, and that’s going to be with Floyd too, they won’t let him fight with feet too. So I’m just going to tell you right here, I would put him to sleep and I’ll put it on his ass for real.”

Taking no prisoners in an interview with FightHype.com, Mayweather Sr. warned McGregor to stay away from boxing and said if Floyd Mayweather Jr. ever did decide to take the fight then “my son’s gonna whoop his ass anyway.”

Join us tomorrow for part two, as we count down from 25 – 1 in the top 50 Conor McGregor callouts of 2016.

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