BOOK REVIEW Alternative look at McGregor not the definitive account

AS IF further evidence were needed that MMA has penetrated its way onto the edges of mainstream in the Irish sporting sphere, this week’s offering, the second in three weeks on the combat sport, is written and foreworded by two heavyweights in journalism.

‘Chaos is a Friend of Mine’ is penned by the marmite Irish writer Ewan MacKenna, noted for his uncompromising stance on many of sport’s dark arts. The foreword is written by American stand-out, ESPN’s Mississippi native Wright Thompson.

Well, one might assume that two big hitters wouldn’t just come together for any old reason. There had to be a big potential for sales and, right enough, nobody has ever sold in the sport of MMA like Conor McGregor.

Naturally, this is an alternative look at the life of the combat sport’s biggest name.

It’s probably best to first glance at the foreword, which sees Thompson express regret about a piece he previously wrote for ESPN detailing Crumlin as somewhere akin to Riverdale in Chicago, although his editors did him no favours in changing the copy in that instance.

The book quickly enters the early chapters and anyone familiar with

MacKenna’s style will find it in longer form here.

There is very clear direction the author looks to go, taking on the shadier sides of McGregor’s life and spraying them across 16 chapters.

MacKenna decides on a novel way of telling the story, using a Las Vegas base in October, 2018, at the time of

McGregor’s second-to-last bout with

Khabib Nurmagomedov, to tell part of the yarn in the odd-numbered chapters.

In the even number chapters, Dublin is his base, and these are set in early 2019, in the months after McGregor’s crushing defeat to the Russian.

At this stage there seems to be an endless stream of ‘breaking news’ on the fighter, and this forms a backdrop for these chapters.

The essence of a decent book is here, as it’s well written and easy to navigate, but there is a big problem. It feels like MacKenna started writing this, didn’t get enough quality content from in and around McGregor, but ploughed on anyway, hoping to strike while the iron was hot.

In reality, this publication is about ten years too early to be excellent, which, who knows, might be ten years too late for it to be relevant. As time goes by and McGregor becomes less of a cash cow, others will talk, this book would have grown longer legs, and sales could be big.

In attempting to get in before others, MacKenna has just gone too early. It’s almost certain many will follow (look at the amount of books trying to add layers to the Tiger Woods story over the last decade), but this just misses the mark.

Unlike most MMA books, which have a generally small, specific market in which they can make serious inroads, ‘Chaos is a Friend of Mine’ is different. In fact, that general market will more likely shun this, especially if they are mini-McGregors.

Instead, MacKenna has to hope there’s a big enough anti-McGregor market out there to suck up copies of this book. Yet the question is not about whether or not enough of those exist, as they clearly do.

It’s too early to be ‘The Book’ on McGregor, but if you want a bit of background in the meantime, one that’s not going to blow smoke up the Crumlin man’s backside, then this will do the job for now. DEAN GOODISON

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