Conor McGregor is smiling. Kind of. McGregor seems to smile a lot. One google search of “Conor McGregor laughing” will leave you with a slew of results of his infamous cackle. He seems to enjoy himself a lot. Nothing wrong with that; he has a lot to smile about. In the above photo Conor is just two year removed from his UFC debut, and here he is headlining what will be one of the years biggest cards.

Also, in the above photo he is in the middle of the biggest fight of his life at the time, against a late-notice replacement who is also a stylistic-nightmare. Given the circumstances, Conor McGregor should not be smiling. Most people facing Chad Mendes, NCAA Division 1 wrestler & power punching phenom, who had only lost to one other man at the time of this fight, are not found to be smiling. They’re found backing up to the fence and later on found unconscious. The thing about Mcgregor’s smile? It might have won him the fight.

This championship fight ended with three seconds left in the second round, Conor stopping Mendes by TKO. Rewind just a minute earlier and you’d think that if the fight was to end anytime soon it would be by Chad Mendes. For most of the fight McGregor was stuck on his back, trying to stop Mendes from raining down punches. A cut above McGregor’s right eye shows that his efforts weren’t too successful.

It was a tale of two fights: McGregor pressing forward landing hard body kicks and absorbing Mendes’s leaping over hands & McGregor being taken down & beaten up on. This was what many fans and analyst predicted. Conor, A natural striker with not much interest in the ground game had been given favorable match ups along his way to the title shot. A wrestler is the kryptonite of a striker, and McGregor finally had to deal with one, only because Featherweight champ Jose Aldo pulled out of the fight with a broken rib. Most fighters wouldn’t accept such a dangerous replacement fight, but McGregor notoriously was awoken by his coach with the news of the replacement, and noted that “they’re all the same,” before falling back to sleep.

With thirty nine seconds left, Conor was able to get back onto his feet after a failed submission attempt from Chad. Not a lot of time to work with. Without hesitation, McGregor did what he has said he will do since before he was ever a UFC fighter. Back when his hair was buzzed and his face had pimples: “I will move forward.”

This next level confidence is almost unbelievable. McGregor got onto his feet, pressed forward, and gave Mendes a smile as if to say “You know you fucked up, right?” Mendes backpedalled to the fence, & Conor began his high volume striking game. Thirty seconds left in the second round. Two rounds down on the scorecards. Conor is pressed forward, and lands nine strikes. Mendes, no where near the level of striker that Conor is, goes for a takedown. This time it’s stuff, and Conor gives him another nod, impressed with his own defense of the takedown. There’s twenty three seconds left now. Conor lands another flurry- thirteen strikes this time, including two stunning kicks to the body. None of these shots matter, as it is strike number fourteen, Conor’s infamous left straight, that rattles Mendes’s skull, leaving him falling to the canvas. The referee stops the fight with only three seconds left in the round.

A normal fighter would of lost that round. A normal fighter would have gotten up & needed to readjust. They would of needed a moment to accept the beating that they had just taken for three minutes. Doubts would jump across their mind and seap out onto their face. Not only do athletes need to have the best skills, they need to believe they have them. McGregor, as was clear from the start, is not a normal fighter. With no hesitation he marched forward, probably thinking that he was winning the fight. Confidence is equal parts insanity as it is skill.

“Let them believe it’s talk,There’s a reason why I talk this way. It’s because I’m supremely confident in my abilities.”

Confidence & self belief is a very important part of sports. Most of the greatest athletes have an astounding amount of confidence. Confidence is also hard to quantify. Would McGregor have lost his fight against Chad Mendes if he wasn’t so incredibly confident? Hard to say. I sure think he would have been in for a much longer and harder fight had he not been confident in his abilities. Would Conor have pressed forward so much so much with a kick-heavy gameplan had he not been confident in that approach? I don’t think so.

A kick-heavy gameplan against a wrestler of Chad Mendes’s pedigree is dangerous-one sloppy kick and and it could be caught, and you could end up on your back. Ofcourse, Conor McGregor didn’t forsee himself ever being on his back, despite having been there for the majority of that fight. He speaks of visualizing victory and visualizing specific shots landing on his opponent. His predictions have been incredible, and his nickname “Mystic Mac” is well deserved. His confidence & Charisma have made him the UFC’s biggest star ever, and earned him the Featherweight belt in December of 2015 when he knocked out long reigning Champion Jose Aldo, a man who hadn’t lost a fight in 10 years when he was only 19. A man who lost it all in only 13 seconds when Mcgregor connected with his first shot, a back-stepping counter left hook.

Conor’s Confidence may have been his downfall at UFC 197, where again, he was forced to fight a replacement fighter. This time is was the lanky veteran Nate Diaz. A marathon-running, pot-smoking boxer with a slick submission game. This was the one fight where everyone finally favored McGregor to win. Round 1 left Diaz a bloody mess, but there was one difference. Diaz wasn’t phased by McGregor’s powerful punches. He could take them all day. McGregor was forced to answer a question during that fight-”What do I do if someone can take my shots?” Unfortunately, he wasn't able to answer that question. McGregor showed a weakness- poor cardio which hadn’t been an issue when he was knocking guys out in seven minutes or less. Diaz wore on McGregor and snapped in a rear-naked choke. He shocked the world.

A rematch at UFC 202 proved that Conor could overcome his showboating and desire for the knockout as he put on a leg kick heavy gameplan and won a tight decision after a 25 minute war.

McGregor is a legend in the making, a modern day Muhammad Ali who is forging his legend faster than any sports icon has done it. On November 12 He seeks to make more history by becoming the first man to hold belts in two weight classes. He challenges newly crowned Lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. His confidence might again be his downfall, but without it he would doubtfully be in the position he is in now- on the cusp of history once again.

EDIT: Conor McGregor won, in dominating fashion, to become the first man to hold two belts at once. During his post-fight interview he smiled, saying he “dreamt this to reality.”