Conor McGregor issues instant eight-word response to losing $500,000 bet

Conor McGregor insisted he will bounce back stronger after losing a $500,000 bet on Francis Ngannou's MMA comeback.

The Irishman went public with his confidence that Renan Ferreira would knock out Ngannou as the former heavyweight champion fought in the cage for the first time in almost three years. McGregor stood to make a cool $1.7million from the bet if the Brazilian prevailed - . But rather than wallow in his loss, McGregor immediately took to social media to post: "The rich get richer. I'll get that back."

McGregor recently celebrated a spate of winning bets, winning over $8m in a single week over the summer when he backed Spain to win Euro 2024. The Spaniards' win over England in the final won the former two-weight UFC champion $1m while Argentina's triumph over in the Copa America final netted him $365,000.

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And an incredible treble of those two teams to win, and Carlos Alcaraz to lift the Wimbledon trophy saw him bank $4m. Finally, McGregor backed old rival Nate Diaz to beat Jorge Masvidal in their fight, which he duly did to net the Dubliner $1.6m. And earlier this month, McGregor won $200,000 from a $1m bet on UFC light-heavyweight champion Alex Pereria who stopped Khalil Rountree to retain his belt.

But he was way off the mark when it came to Ngannou's first MMA fight since he outpointed Ciryl Gane in 2022 as the Cameroonian took down Ferreira in the opening minutes before landing a barrage of punches on the canvas, forcing the referee to step in.

Ngannou had taken a break from MMA after leaving the UFC following a contract dispute. He switched to boxing where he dropped only to lose a contentious points decision. Ngannou was then battered by earlier this year as the Brit knocked him out in the second round. He has yet to commit to either sport for his next fight following his demolition job of Ferreira and admitted he had struggled to deal with the death of his one-year-old son Kobe earlier this year.

"They’ve been telling me I’m tough to the point where I think I’m tough – and I recently just found out I wasn’t tough,” Ngannou said. "I wasn’t that tough. Life can let you take the events and think you’re running away, and then it hits you really bad from the front. It’s something that I never imagined. I never knew how I would feel. I see people going through and out of compassion I tried to understand how they must feel. But I would never get anywhere close to how it feels exactly."