Chad Mendes earned more in McGregor’s BKFC run

The strangest part of Chad Mendes’ Conor McGregor story is not the left hand that ended it.

It is the money trail afterward. Mendes took the emergency call at UFC 189, walked into the center of the McGregor storm on barely more than a week’s notice, fought for an interim featherweight belt and became part of one of the most replayed chapters of the Irishman’s rise. Yet, by Mendes’ own telling, that was not the night that paid him best.

Eleven years before McGregor’s scheduled July 11 return against Max Holloway at UFC 329, Mendes was the short-notice replacement for the injured Jose Aldo. Now the retired UFC contender has offered a reminder that fame, danger and compensation do not always line up neatly in combat sports.

Chad Mendes says BKFC topped his Conor McGregor payday

Asked recently on The Bohnfire whether the McGregor fight represented the largest purse of his career, Mendes answered plainly: “No, my bare knuckle fights were.” That is the kind of sentence that lands harder than a payroll spreadsheet, because UFC 189 was not some forgettable prelim assignment. It was a pay-per-view centerpiece, a title fight, and a defining step in McGregor’s march from featherweight contender to global attraction.

Mendes had been chosen after Aldo was ruled out, with Frankie Edgar also in the conversation for the replacement slot. Mendes wrestled well early, put McGregor on his back, and made the bout feel dangerous before McGregor rallied and stopped him in round two to claim the interim featherweight championship. The result boosted McGregor’s legend, but Mendes has now made clear that the richest checks of his fighting life arrived later, after his UFC days were already behind him.

Why Mendes took bare-knuckle fights late in his career

Mendes last competed in MMA in 2018, then returned to combat sports through BKFC in 2022 and 2023. He beat Joshuah Alvarez in his bare-knuckle debut, then met former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez in a high-profile BKFC bout that Alvarez won by split decision. Mendes has described the bare-knuckle run as a financial opportunity at the back end of his career rather than some romantic reinvention, and that honesty is part of the value here. Fighters rarely speak so directly about why they say yes to extra risk after their prime years are gone.

• Mendes fought McGregor at UFC 189 after Jose Aldo withdrew.
• McGregor won by second-round stoppage to become interim featherweight champion.
• Mendes later fought twice in BKFC, beating Joshuah Alvarez and losing to Eddie Alvarez.
• McGregor is a part-owner of BKFC and is scheduled to face Max Holloway at UFC 329 on July 11.

Conor McGregor’s UFC 329 comeback gets a Mendes reality check

Mendes’ comments also hit differently because McGregor is preparing for his own return after a long break. Holloway has brushed aside the idea that activity alone decides their rematch, but the layoff question remains unavoidable. Mendes knows the strange feeling of coming back after time away; he has said that enough correct work can bring old instincts back, while also admitting the version of a fighter who returns is not automatically the peak version fans remember.

That matters for McGregor because his brand has always been tied to timing, confidence and instant command of a moment. Against Holloway, those things will be tested by a fighter who has kept competing at an elite level and has evolved enormously since their first UFC meeting. For the featherweight and lightweight orbit around them, the result shapes more than nostalgia: a sharp McGregor win would keep the UFC’s biggest commercial lever in play, while a Holloway victory would underline the gap between active excellence and comeback celebrity.

Mendes’ revelation does not rewrite UFC 189, but it does add a hard edge to the mythology around it. The biggest stage of his career was not the biggest payday of his career, and his top money came later in BKFC.