LAS VEGAS -- UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor hosted a media day on Monday to promote a much-anticipated championship fight at UFC 189 on July 11 at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
It was the second stop of a 12-day media blitz the promotion has dubbed 'World Tour.' The trip began last week in Rio de Janeiro, Aldo's backyard, and will wrap later this month in McGregor's native Dublin.
Never before in its 21-year history has the UFC ponied up for this kind of media campaign, which includes the service of private jets for each fighter and a film crew to document every step for an Internet series.
"We've never really done a world tour like this, like boxing has done historically," said UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta. "We looked at the sell-ability of this fight. We've done research where we polled people, 'Okay, here is a list of potential UFC fights, which one do you most want to see?' Aldo vs. McGregor came out on top every single time."
Go figure the catalyst in all of this is not Aldo (25-1), a seven-time defending champion, but McGregor (17-2) -- a title challenger with just five career fights in the Octagon.
McGregor, 26, is widely considered a trash-talker, but he's claimed on multiple occasions he merely speaks the truth.
One bit of truth the Irishman spoke on during a 30-minute media session on Monday is that traditional UFC practice dictates that if one event has two title fights, the heavier of the two headlines the card. That's not the case with UFC 189, however, as Aldo and McGregor were booked as the main event, ahead of a welterweight title fight between Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald on the same night.
In fact, this scenario has happened just one other time and it also happened to involve Aldo. At UFC 169 in February 2014, Aldo's sixth title defense was booked to the co-main event so Urijah Faber, a bantamweight, could headline.
Of course, McGregor is practically giddy pointing this out, as it illustrates the effect his marketability has on the card.
"I said on the night (UFC 169) happened, I tweeted him, 'You're the pound-for-pound co-main event champion of the world,'" McGregor said. "He fights me, now we're ahead of the 170-pound division -- the division that has ran the game for so long. Now, we have jets fired up, ready to take us to L.A., New York, Boston.
"There's never been nobody like me. I don't care what anyone says. He's never experienced no one like me. Whether he's fought in the main event or for belts, it's a completely different experience when you fight me. We're going on a World Tour all over the globe. When you sign to fight me, it's a pressure bubble that surrounds people and then you've got me in your face about to take your head off. People crumble under it."
Aldo hasn't been known to crumble easily.
The 28-year-old Brazilian grew up poor in Manaus and moved to Rio de Janeiro alone when he was 16. He slept at the gym, Nova Uniao, that he eventually won a UFC world title for, borrowing food money from teammates.
He first became the featherweight king in November 2009, when he knocked out Mike Brown for the WEC title. McGregor, by contrast, took 2009 off -- in part due to injury, but also because he hadn't even committed to fighting full-time yet.
But despite his universal rank as a top five pound-for-pound talent, Aldo has not blossomed into a strong pay-per-view draw for the UFC. He's produced high television ratings in Brazil, but his selling power in the U.S. remains low.
A world tour and a potentially aesthetically pleasing title fight against McGregor could ultimately take Aldo's career to another level in terms of marketability.
"The thing about Jose is he's been such a dominant champion for so long and this is a great platform for him to grab attention worldwide," Fertitta said. "If he goes out and performs after all this like we know he's capable of, he could turn into a star overnight.
"I think he's kind of lived under the shadow of (former Brazilian UFC middleweight champion) Anderson Silva for a long time and now is his opportunity to take the torch. We're expecting this fight in Brazil to be at an Anderson Silva level. When Anderson fought on Globo (UFC broadcast partner), he'd do 35 million viewers. We're expecting something like that for this fight."
Aldo is never going to be the public speaker McGregor is. That much has always been evident and it was again on Monday, when each held court before a room of reporters within 10 minutes of the other.
McGregor knows how to get the most out of it when cameras and audio recorders are in front of him. He mentioned this week he wants UFC 189 to compete with the PPV numbers of boxing's superfight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao on May 2 (a ridiculous goal).
When asked how he would celebrate winning the UFC title, he replied, "I expect everyone in the top 10 of the featherweight division to line up and beg for forgiveness, beg to be pardoned. If they do that, I will hand the featherweight belt back and go up to 155 (pounds)."
Aldo, meanwhile, swore up and down the July 11 fight would be no different than any other in his career. Speaking in Portuguese, he made no promises regarding his future and downplayed the significance of finishing a fight -- something he's struggled to do consistently in the UFC, and which McGregor has criticized him for.
The beauty of this World Tour, however, is Aldo doesn't need to talk. Frankly, his quiet, serious demeanor plays as a perfect contrast to McGregor's brash confidence. And the 18-fight winning streak he's on speaks for itself.
Discussing their first staredown in Brazil last week, Aldo laughed and said he doesn't mind the Irish trash talk because he can't understand most of what McGregor says anyway. If McGregor touches him at all during a photo-op, however, Aldo promised, "something is going to happen."
When told of Aldo's promise later that day, McGregor said, "What's he going to do? He had his chance. He done nothing. It's fear. I might touch him now."
Say this about the first-ever UFC 'World Tour' -- it's not proving to be dull.