Conor McGregor has been named the UFC's most hated fighter in a new study of fans' online activity, with Israel Adesanya the most beloved.
New research from Bookmakers.com has shown that McGregor bares the brunt of negative comments from fans on social media due to his outspoken nature. However, the Dubliner is infamously divisive, and he also lands at No.3 on the list of most beloved fighters, which is topped by middleweight champion Adesanya.
A former two-weight world champion in the promotion, McGregor is undoubtedly MMA's biggest star, and one of the most famous athletes in the world. He topped the Forbes Magazine rich list last year, and has made hundreds of millions throughout his fighting career after being signed to the UFC just under a decade ago.
McGregor is said to receive, through a study of posts on Twitter and Reddit, around 29.31 per cent negative feedback, while positive sentiment towards the fighter is 44.6 per cent. In second place on the top ten list of hated fighters is light-heavyweight Thiago Santos, who received 28 per cent.
Also featured on the hated fighters list are drugs cheat and former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw, featherweight contender Raquel Pennington, Liverpool's Darren Till, light-heavyweight Anthony Smith, flyweights Lauren Murphy and Viviana Araujo, with two famously disliked characters in Jon Jones and Colby Covington coming in remarkably low.
McGregor is the only one on the most hated list to also feature on the most beloved one. Adesanya and former flyweight champion Brandon Moreno have him beat with 54.7 and 51.6 per cent between them, but the Irishman is seemingly the third most loved fighter in the promotion as well.
The online bookmakers' portal utilised social listening tool Linkfluence to acquired the online sentiment data from Reddit and Twitter surrounding every UFC fighter on the current roster over the past year. From there, they put together a list of the most hated and most loved fighters.
McGregor recently told fans he was concerned over the negativity on Twitter after a series of tweet and delete attacks on other fighters. He admitted that he was "upset" with himself after sending nasty posts in the aftermath of rival Tony Ferguson's brutal knockout defeat to Michael Chandler last month.
"I’m upset I went at Tony like that," he tweeted, before referencing Elon Musk's purchase of the company. "Out straight. Wtf team, this is not a nice app nor does it encourage nice behaviour toward each other. 43billion, man pull that and say 'sike' who give a f***, really. No one. Dip to a dip on the ship. The carry the toys ship. Leave a beast a beast."
He is currently recovering from a broken leg, and is expected to return to the octagon when he has been cleared to compete. He was injured in his last fight against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264, and has promised to return in the welterweight division.
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