Was dental work the real reason for Connor McGregor's downfall?

Definitely yes. Now let me explain.

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I got a random message on IG mentioning that I should write about Connor McGregor and whether pulling his wisdom teeth contributed to his downfall.

I’d never heard this before but with his major slide in recent years it would explain a lot. So I fact checked it.. and sure enough it’s true. And pretty well documented.

So now let’s analyze.

First.. who’s Connor McGregor

Conor McGregor is an Irish professional mixed martial artist who rose to global fame as a two-division UFC champion, holding titles in both the featherweight and lightweight divisions simultaneously.

Known for his flashy lifestyle, precise striking, and unparalleled trash-talking abilities, McGregor transformed combat sports marketing with his charismatic persona.

His knockout victories over champions like José Aldo (in just 13 seconds) and Eddie Alvarez cemented his reputation as one of the most devastating strikers in MMA history.

Beyond the octagon, McGregor expanded his empire through lucrative endorsements, his Proper Twelve whiskey brand, and a high-profile boxing match against Floyd Mayweather that reportedly earned him over $100 million. At his peak, he was arguably the most recognized combat sports athlete in the world.

Conor had his wisdoms removed in 2017

In mid-2017, Conor McGregor underwent oral surgery to have his wisdom teeth extracted.

According to dental records and McGregor's own social media posts at the time, he had all four wisdom teeth removed in a single procedure performed by a dental surgeon in Dublin.

McGregor's dentist reportedly advised the removal due to impaction issues with his third molars, which is a common reason for wisdom teeth extraction.

There are some videos like the one above that attribute his later downfall to this removal of wisdom teeth. And this was my initial hypothesis.

But my general experience with wisdom teeth is that while they cause a little bit of biomechanical collapse, the body doesn’t typically go into a faster collapse like they will if you remove molars and premolars.

So something felt a bit strange about blaming the wisdom teeth removal.

His fighting career went downhill a couple years after getting them removed

After a nearly two-year hiatus following the Mayweather bout in 2017, McGregor returned to the UFC in October 2018 to face Khabib Nurmagomedov for the lightweight championship.

The result was a decisive fourth-round submission loss that exposed glaring deficiencies in McGregor's grappling defense and cardio.

During the fight, observers noted that McGregor appeared physically different—his movement was less fluid, his striking less precise, and his famous left hand seemed to have lost some of its devastating power.

In January 2020, McGregor briefly rekindled hopes of a comeback with a quick TKO victory over Donald Cerrone. However, this would prove to be his last win to date.

His subsequent losses to Dustin Poirier in 2021 (twice, including a gruesome leg break in their trilogy fight) further cemented the narrative of his decline. In these fights, McGregor appeared sluggish, his timing off, and his once-remarkable ability to absorb punishment severely diminished.

I think the real knockout blow came in 2021 when he did his smile makeover

Basically in April 2021 a couple months before his second fight with Dustin Poirier that he again lost, he had a smile makeover.

You can see his IG post above where he says “Hey guys, I decided to match my smile to my bank account. See yous in July”

He never made it public what exactlly he did.. but ChatGPT guesses that it was either veneers, full crowns or orthodontics.

And the problem wouldn’t be bad if it was only the front teeth as they don’t really make contact. Rather the problem comes once you start changing the premolars and molars.

Which if you look closely at this video (link), particularly how white the premolars are.. I am very confident that he did change them.

For example this image above shows how you put a veneer on a premolar. You essentially shave it down and then put the veneer on top.

But shaping a tooth correctly to preserve curve of spee is extremely difficult. And i say this from experience.

The reason for this is because of what I explained in this article

Indexed splints and the magical "perfect jaw position"

The cusps of the teeth need to support several different jaw positions. His natural cusps would have done this naturally… the new cusps likely would not have.

Because small differences (less than a millimeter) could create major issues that then flatten the curve of spee over time.

Then his skull also changed a lot

When i look at pics of him the story becomes very clear.

Yes, the wisdom teeth removal of 2017 did some damage. And may have been the thing that caused him to lose his fights to Dustin Poirer in 2021.

But in the pic above on the left, my view is that in Jan 2021 the guy still had a terrific skull. World-class.

But the real devastation to his skull happened in the years after his smile makeover of April 2021.

When i look at the shape of his skull and the lines of the soft tissue that I pay attention to.. it is as if he aged at least a decade after 2021 in terms of the skull collapsing.

Which means that his body would have degraded by the same amount because they are two sides of the same coin.

Doing all the hard exercise likely forced his body to compensate faster

McGregor was training very hard in 2022 and 2023 preparing for a comeback. He was supposed to fight Michael Chandler in 2023.

However, due to various delays, the bout was rescheduled for June 29, 2024, at UFC 303. But, McGregor sustained a broken toe, leading to the fight's cancellation.

And i’m very confident that all of that hard training he was doing in those couple years was forcing his body to compensate like crazy. His occlusion would have him in freefall and he was just throwing fuel on the fire with all the exercise.

McGregor's injuries during this period tell part of the story as well.

Beyond the catastrophic leg break against Poirier, he experienced a series of less publicized issues: chronic shoulder inflammation, persistent wrist injuries, and reports of frequent headaches and jaw pain.

And that all adds up to what I call… “B-I-O-M-E-C-H-A-N-I-C-A-L C-O-L-L-A-P-S-E”

McGregor punches elderly man at a bar

These days it seems like his whole life is falling apart

The physical decline has been accompanied by a disturbing pattern of personal and legal troubles.

Since 2018, McGregor has faced multiple lawsuits, including sexual assault allegations in Ireland and the United States (though no criminal charges were filed), as well as a civil suit for allegedly assaulting a fan outside a Miami nightclub.

His public behavior has grown increasingly erratic with public intoxication incidents in Dublin and Florida. Most recently, his assault on an elderly man in a Dublin pub for refusing a shot of his whiskey brand showcased a troubling lack of self-control.

It is clear that not just his physical health but also his mental health has suffered a lot these past few years. Probably because his skull is literally collapsing in on his brain.

Closing thoughts

I began writing about Conor with the intention of investigating the connection to the extraction of his wisdom teeth in 2017. Which always seems a bit fishy to me.. as people get their wisdom teeth extracted all of the time without experiencing much biomechanical collapse.

But as I delved further I found out about the smile makeover of 2021, which I am sure is the far greater culprit.

And now we are witnessing real-time the physical and mental degradation that follows. He is aging at an accelerated rate while somewhat losing it publicly.

And finally for that last question that you Connor McGregor fans are probably pondering….

Could Connor get back to the height of his career if he did Reviv for a couple years?

And the answer is…. YES! I think he could.

But it would require a lot of work and dedication. And he’d probably need pretty direct supervision from me at the start to do it quickly.

But with his shit-talking abilities, i don’t think i could take that… hahahaha

Worth checking out

I highly recommend you check out this just published interview with Cranium Autist, who has a very impressive analytical mind towards all of this stuff. And also has many thousands of followers on Tiktok and other social channels.