An interview with Conor McGregor in "McGregor Forever." An interview with Conor McGregor in “McGregor Forever.” (Netflix.)

Religion of Sports has done quite a few documentary projects with top athletes over the years, including Tom vs. Time and The Man In The Arena with Tom Brady (who co-founded the company with Gotham Chopra and Michael Strahan), Stephen vs. the Game with Steph Curry, Simone vs. Herself with Simone Biles, and Passion Play with Russell Westbrook. They’re now working with Conor McGregor on a docuseries, which will be streaming on Netflix beginning May 17. The McGregor Forever series will be directed by Chopra and executive produced by Chopra, Ameeth Sankaran, Giselle Parets, Audie Attar, Peter Berg, and Matt Goldberg. As per a release, this will be an “all-access, behind-the-scenes” four-part docuseries on McGregor, “with each hour-long episode detailing his infamous UFC career and how he’s been preparing for his comeback.” Here’s a first-look trailer for it, including an interview with McGregor in a hospital bed:

Here’s more on that from that release, including quite the quote from Chopra:

In 2021, Conor McGregor faced one of the most demanding years of his career. Three fights in twelve months with the eyes of the world watching. This series will put you in the room with one of the greatest mixed martial arts stars on the planet as he takes on the most important battle of his career. Now, as the superstar who put the sport on the map prepares for his return to the octagon, you get a behind-the-scenes look at how Conor got here and why he’s still the driving force in the UFC.

…“Conor is unlike anyone I’ve ever collaborated with. As one of his trainers described him, he’s an entirely unreasonable man,” said Gotham Chopra, Co-director of McGregor Forever. “And for that reason, he’s impossible not to watch and be fascinated by. Don’t look away, because I guarantee you, you will definitely miss something inexplicably wild.”

McGregor certainly has had plenty of notable interactions with the media over the years, including unbleeped and bleeped appearances on ESPN’s SportsCenter, calling Showtime Sports general manager Stephen Espinosa “a little b*tch” during a wild press tour to promote his Showtime-distributed PPV boxing match against Floyd Mayweather, and a whole variety of run-ins with Nate Diaz (who’s also currently in the news, but for very different reasons). Here’s one of those, from Fox Sports Live (RIP) in 2016:

McGregor has also had run-ins with the law over the years, from his pre-UFC 223 bus incident to sexual assault accusations in 2018, 2019, and 2020 to accusations of him stealing and smashing a fan’s phone in 2019 to a variety of assault allegations (including one made this January over an incident from last summer) and charges to a wide range of driving offenses. It will be interesting to see how this docuseries handles his controversies. He’s undisputedly had a great fighting career and drew a whole lot of fans for both UFC and boxing events, and he’s found success in business as well (particularly with his Proper 12 whiskey brand, which he and his partners sold a majority stake in for up to $600 million in 2021). But those controversies away from those events are notable, and we’ll see how this series covers them.

[Netflix on YouTube]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.