The insane price of tickets for McGregor fight revealed

If you’re planning on heading to Vegas to watch Conor McGregor’s comeback to the UFC in October, you better get saving soon.

Ticket prices have just been revealed for McGregor’s mega-fight against Russian rival Khabib Nurmagomedov.

The UFC 229 main event fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas will cost punters a minimum AU$281 for nose bleed seats, and a whopping AU$3,444 if you want to be up close to the action.

MMA journalist Ariel Helwani shared the range of prices to Twitter, revealing the cost of tickets for various sections of the arena in US dollar prices.

Tickets go on sale on Friday for the lightweight championship fight, and despite their astronomical price, are expected to sell out soon.

Irish fans in particular are expected to fill out the T-Mobile Arena, as they do for most major sporting events involving an Irish champion.

Why Conor v Khabib will be the biggest UFC fight ever

The UFC is filled with extraordinary athletes who, when matched properly, can do amazing things in the Octagon.

No fight that currently can be made, no fight that has ever been made in the UFC, has the potential to be quite like Khabib Nurmagomedov against Conor McGregor.

The bout, to be held Oct. 6 in the main event of UFC 229 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for the lightweight championship, has an opportunity to sell two million on pay-per-view.

It literally is unique in UFC history for the level of trash talk that will be exchanged; for the unprecedented public relations and marketing blitz that will accompany it; for the vast amount of money the fighters will earn and, yes, for the quality of the match it has the potential to be.

Perhaps no fight in combat sports history since the epic March 8, 1971, heavyweight championship boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier will approach this one in terms of significance within the sport, demand from the public and contrast in style from an athletic standpoint.

Ali and Frazier entered that 1971 bout – still known as “The Fight of the Century” – each undefeated and each with a claim to the heavyweight championship. It pitted an icon of the sport in Ali against his successor as champion in Frazier, who while not as revered had quietly built an extraordinary reputation.

Ali was the classic boxer while Frazier was the puncher with the relentless bob-and-weave style that had helped him produce 23 knockouts in his 26 pro fights heading into the first bout with Ali. Ali was 31-0 but was returning after having been banned from the sport for more than three years because of his refusal to be inducted into the military.

McGregor returns having never lost his championship in the ring. He was stripped of the featherweight championship he’d won by beating Chad Mendes for the interim belt and then knocking out Jose Aldo for the full-time one after he defeated Eddie Alvarez in 2016 to win the lightweight title.

And he was stripped of his lightweight belt for not defending it in a timely fashion against Nurmagomedov earlier this year.

In the old days, the UFC used to give its fights names. If it did that for this one, it would be, “King vs. King.”

These two represent the pinnacle of MMA at this point at the intersection of business and sport. McGregor is the acknowledged No. 1 star in MMA and his promotional genius helped the fight with Mayweather become the second-biggest PPV ever with 4.3 million sales.

McGregor is 21-3 overall in MMA and 9-1 in the UFC, with his only loss coming to Nate Diaz at UFC 196 in a welterweight bout, when he was choked out. Before making the announcement that McGregor and Nurmagomedov would fight, the UFC announced that Diaz would return for the first time since losing a rematch to McGregor on Aug. 20, 2016, when he fights Dustin Poirier at UFC 230 in New York on Nov. 3.

Unlike many big-selling bouts, this one isn’t just hype. Even if Nurmagomedov and McGregor weren’t the most popular fighters in their sport, the match between them would be hotly anticipated because of the difference in style.

McGregor is the classic MMA striker, and has powerful hands, debilitating kicks and dangerous knees and elbows. Nurmagomedov is a feared grappler who takes opponents down and doesn’t let them up. McGregor showed his vulnerability to jiu-jitsu in his loss to Diaz, while Nurmagomedov’s vulnerability to high-level striking appeared in his April win over Al Iaquinta.

The Westgate Las Vegas opened Nurmagomedov as a minus-180 favorite, with McGregor as a plus-150 underdog.