Heated debate over "b**tardization of the Conor McGregor effect" goes down between Ariel Helwani and Chael Sonnen

Conor McGregor's persona has captivated the masses ever since his rise in the world of MMA. Despite receiving a fair share of criticism, it was his outspoken nature and trash-talking ability, along with his skills, that led to people paying attention to him during his early days.

Over the years, many fighters have tried to duplicate McGregor's way of trash-talking in an attempt to sell fights. However, it has also led to fighters involving each other's families and many believe that is crossing the line.

That has become a raging topic of discussion recently. Last week, there were several instances where fighters seemingly crossed the line in the build-up to the last pay-per-view of the year, UFC 296.

Colby Covington brought up Leon Edwards' father, who was killed, and during the UFC's seasonal press conference, Dricus du Plessis spoke about Sean Strickland's abusive father.

Discussing the recent instances of controversial fighter remarks during an episode of The MMA Hour, Ariel Helwani spoke about the "b**tardization of the Conor McGregor effect" with Chael Sonnen as a guest on the show:

"I call it the b**tardization of the Conor McGregor effect. Means a lot of fighters looked at what Conor did and he had a certain way of capturing people's attention, he had a charm...there are a lot of guys that come up now who don't have that and they say, 'Hey, there's no repercussions, I can say what I want, I can act the way I want.'"

Chael Sonnen responded by seemingly disagreeing with Ariel Helwani:

"When you say there should be repercussions, well there is. The crowd doesn't get behind it. You go too far, you don't get invited to the press conference, if you can't go the press conference, you can't get a main event. There's certain things that are built in."

Catch their back-and-forth below:

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Dana White opines on Conor McGregor's return

Conor McGregor's return to the octagon has been a topic of discussion for quite some time now. 'The Notorious' hasn't competed since July 2021, and despite being billed to return this year against Michael Chandler, he failed to enter the USADA testing pool in time to compete in 2023.

While a lot has been said about McGregor's return next year, Dana White believes he will only compete when he "really wants to come back."

During an interview with TNT Sports, he said:

"When Conor [McGregor] gets that hunger back and really wants to come back and fight, it's all up to him. You know, if you look at what the guy has accomplished in such a short amount of time, the amount of money that he's made, the business opportunities that he's taken outside of the octagon, Conor could do whatever the hell Conor wants to do."

Catch his comments in the clip below: