Khabib Nurmagomedov

Notorious self-promotion for other marketers to learn from

by

Here’s a puzzle for you:

The top 5 most money-making MMA fights of all time… all feature the same fighter.

He’s a short Irish guy who has lost four of his last seven fights. These days, he’s better-known for his whiskey brand and for his criminal activity than for sports or sportsmanship.

Even if you don’t follow MMA, you probably know who I’m talking about. It’s “The Notorious” Conor McGregor. So my puzzle for you is this:

Why is McGregor such a draw on TV and in real life? After all, he’s estimated to be worth over $100m and is by far the richest MMA fighter in history. Why him and not the hundreds of other MMA pros?

Maybe you say it’s McGregor’s exciting fighting style. Or his ability to knock people out. Or his boyish charm early in his career.

I say all that stuff is cool for a while. But it gets old, much like hard teaching in your daily emails gets old.

Instead, I think it’s because McGregor is a natural-born promoter. He knows how to sell himself… and he knows how to sell fights.

My point is that, if you’re in the business of persuading, influencing, or making sales, then each of McGregor’s public acts is worth studying.

Take, for example, McGregor’s Instagram post yesterday. It was about the retirement of Khabib Nurmagomedov, who beat McGregor badly two years ago, and who is now retiring with an undefeated 29-0 record. To which McGregor wrote:

“Happy retirement kid, smell ya later. Never forget who came in the game and made ye. Straight from my big Irish balls.”

Perhaps you find this arrogant or nasty or stupid. And perhaps it is. But it’s also a good illustration of something McGregor does over and over. And that’s to take every large public event in his industry… and twist it until it points back to him.

Speaking of which:

Today is the last day to sign up for the first run of my bullets course. By my calculation, you’ve got exactly 6 hours and 13 minutes remaining if you’d like to join. And if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about… or you want a refresher to push you off the fence one way or another… then hurry here and follow the instructions at the bottom.

Outrage with stupidity to milk info out of cagey or indifferent adversaries

by

[Dear reader, in Hungary or elsewhere: In spite of saying I would quit it, I’m back posting my daily newsletters to this blog. I have two reasons. One, I never got going creating bigger articles out of these newsletters the way I planned. Two, I don’t want to kowtow to Google — they prefer fewer, longer articles — and I would rather write specifically for people like you. Thanks for reading. And now onto this inflammatory post:]

Two days ago, the president of the UFC, Dana White, got trolled into revealing a highly guarded secret. A bit of background:

The UFC hosts mixed martial arts fights, and on April 18 they were supposed to host the biggest and most anticipated fight in their history, between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson. These two fighters are both on 12-fight win streaks in the UFC, and they were scheduled to fight four times already. Each time, the fight was cancelled at the last minute for some reason.

This time around, as sports organizations around the world cancelled events because of corona, my man Dana White refused to give in. “We’re going ahead with the fight!”

The only problem was they couldn’t figure out where to host it. It was originally supposed to be in Brooklyn, but that was now out. In fact, any other location in the US also became untenable.

“The fight is still on, guys!” White would repeat whenever asked, though he wouldn’t give any more details. So over the past month, speculation kept increasing. Fans were alternating between getting resigned to the inevitable fifth cancellation… and hyped when some new possible location for the fight surfaced. Meanwhile, even Tony and Khabib, the fighters who were supposed to be fighting on the 18th, didn’t know for sure if the fight was still on.

So that’s the background. The update from two days ago is that somebody created a fake Twitter account, mimicking a well-known MMA journalist, and tweeted:

“#BREAKING: Dana White and Vladimir Putin have reached an agreement on travel arrangements for UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov to come to the United States. He will fight Tony Ferguson. It’s happening folks. #UFC249 will go on as scheduled April 18.”

To which Dana White, big goof that he is, immediately blasted out a Tweet saying that it ain’t so, that Khabib is not fighting on April 18, and then to prove it, he finally revealed the whole card that’s scheduled for this corona-infested bout.

Which brings us to the present day, and something called Cunningham’s law:

“The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.”

The sad fact is that in business, in love, and on online forums, there are many times when people are unwilling to answer your questions. Maybe the person you’re talking to is indifferent, or cagey, or hurt, or they just don’t like the implied power dynamics that come with you asking and them answering.

So if you ever find yourself in this situation, swallow your pride, and publicly make a dumb, completely wrong assumption about the right answer. If Cunningham is right, and I suspect he’s at least a little bit right, then an outraged somebody will jump in and say, “No! You’re so wrong! Let me tell you how it really is…”

But I think this Cunningham and his law go even farther. If you just swap out “right answer” and you swap in “response,” you get a good recipe for how to get yourself publicity and an audience online.

Of course, unless you want to be just a troll, you’ll have to figure out a reasonable argument to justify a seemingly “wrong” opinion that you use to attract attention. But it can be done, and guys like Matt Stone and Ben Settle prove it. Outrage and reason are a powerful combination. Aloe vera on its own is pretty bland and slimy, but it sure feels good once you burn your hand on the stove.