You're not wrong, it's gonna be an exciting build up and there's going to be an insane amount of hype surrounding this fight.
I'm sad because after this fight will reportedly pass the $500,000,000 mark I don't see McGregor returning to the UFC win or lose, why on earth would he? He can retire at 28 as the highest earning MMA fighter of all time and former UFC 2 weight champion who also fought in what could be the highest selling PPV fight ever. The only reason I could see him perhaps return is to fight in that massive arena in Ireland (I forget the name) that he's always talked about. But even then... who against? McGregor is motivated solely by money and what name is gonna bring in more $$$ than Floyd Mayweather?
I guess it all comes down to exactly how much money this fight generates...
Croke Park is the Irish stadium he's apparently always wanted to fight at. It normally seats 73,500, probably more for an MMA fight when they'll have just the tiny octagon in the middle and more seats on the pitch. The UFC's previous record was 56,214 for the Rousey-Holm card at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne Australia.
Random aside: I was at that event, and a stadium is the absolute worst place to try to watch an MMA event. You can hardly tell what the tiny little ant people in the cage are doing unless you watch the video on the big screens... and then you may as well be watching in a bar or at home.
Anywho, Croke Park was never going to work earlier in his career because of the time zones: for an event there to be in prime time for the USA they'd have to start the card after midnight local time in Ireland, and IIRC they couldn't get a permit to hold an event there in the middle of the night.
The way they've gotten around that in the past is either used friendlier timezones (the Rousey event in Australia happened Sunday afternoon local time), MAKE the fighters wait until 4.00am to fight (I think this is what they did for the Gustafsson-Johnson card in
sweden) or book it so the card airs on a Sunday or some other non-standard time in the US.
I don't think they've ever done the last one for PPV, only for FS1 or Fight Pass cards without much star power on them.
Maybe McGregor would bring in enough money to overcome the logistical problems... and breaking the UFC's all-time attendance record on his home turf feels like a thing he'd probably like to do.
