Official UFC Thread - Part 7

[DarthSkywalker]

Well Conor kicked Eddie's ass.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Have to give it to Conor, he looked great. Also think he looks like a far better fit for 155. He looks a lot bigger, a lot stronger.

 

[Slushy]

Congratulations to Conor McGregor, The King Of New York!

 

[LoganGambit87]

i'm a believer now i think conor is hands down one of if not the best striker i have ever seen in mma

his technique,timing,speed,precision,power,etc. is next level and some of the best counters in the game

 

[B]

Have to give it to Conor, he looked great. Also think he looks like a far better fit for 155. He looks a lot bigger, a lot stronger.

I concur, it's definitely a division were he cuts a more optimum amount of weight & as a result he looked arguably the best he's looked yet in the UFC against IMO his most dangerous challenge to date despite the fact it went down the way it did.

Despite him having a reach & slight height advantage, Eddie I thought looked a lot more muscular & thicker, he looks like a big LW in terms of his weight I would imagine he wouldn't be far off walking around at 180lbs or so. I thought that once he got hold of Conor he'd be able to smother him & get him to the ground like he did with Pettis.

 

[B]

i'm a believer now i think conor is hands down one of if not the best striker i have ever seen in mma

his technique,timing,speed,precision,power,etc. is next level and some of the best counters in the game

I don't know if I'd rank him as being the very best striker in MMA ever, but he's for sure right up there being an elite striker. His left hand is so accurate & powerful it's like the touch of death when he hits people.

 

[LoganGambit87]

 

[I'm Batman.]

Must say I was impressed there by McGregor. He handled Alvarez convincingly. Alvarez looked nowhere near his quality.

 

[B]

As bad as it would be for Demian Maia, you've got to do a Woodley/Thompson rematch. It's one of the rare occasions in which an immediate rematch is actually warranted, the fight ended in a draw, arguably controversially. To me this getting an immediate rematch makes far more sense than Rockhold/Weidman, McGregor/Diaz, Velasquez/Werdum in which 1 fighter won definitively & all 3 of them were granted immediate rematches, however with McGregor/Diaz the only one actually going through due to pullouts.

Even though it's annoying I'd like Maia to sit & wait on his title shot, the only acceptation would be if Lawler decides to return earlier than scheduled I'd put Maia & Lawler together. Or if GSP returns give him to Maia first.

I know his recent win streak is at Welterweight, but I really, really want to see McGregor vs Cerrone for LW title. Khabib & Ferguson I'd put together for No. 1 contender. I'd like to think McGregor will vacate FW title BUT a rematch with Aldo is without question his next fight if he plans on keeping that title.

 

[I'm Batman.]

All good points, and it will be interesting to see if that's the next fight that's made. There are many options for McGregor now. I'm sure Woodley is just posturing and trying to drum up some more, but do we think that's something which will play into McGregor's ambition? Dana has said time after time that if McGregor won, he'd have to forfeit one of them, but will they make that decision if McGregor says he'll take on Aldo at 145?

 

[B]

Honestly if he wants to hold onto both titles, he has got to fight Aldo next in a unification bout. Otherwise the only alternative for Aldo is to defend the interim title & it would really create a **** storm amongst the people already crying that McGregor hasn't defended the FW title yet if Aldo were to defend the interim title before Conor defended the actual title.

Woodley shouldn't even be talking about McGregor IMO, he should be more focused & motivated in fighting Thompson again. In the same sense Conor shouldn't be thinking about trying to fight at 170. He's far too small for the weight class, he weighed in for both Diaz fights at like 168lbs, he couldn't even make 170lbs. Woodley looks like he walks around at about 200lbs, I would be absolutely astounded if Woodley didn't run through him.

 

[I'm Batman.]

Yep, if Aldo kept a champion's schedule like Ben Henderson I could understand the calls for McGregor to hurry up. To put things into perspective when Aldo fought Mendes for the first time, Holloway was a 4-0 prospect booked to make his UFC debut. After his next fight he'll likely be 17-3 or 16-4. 16 fights. Aldo has had 6 fights in that period. McGregor himself won 2 titles in Cage Warriors, debuted in the UFC, managed to take 11 months off himself with ACL surgery, beat 3 top 10 guys, knocked out Aldo, went up 2 weight classes, lost, avenged the defeat, then went down another class and knocked out the champion to go 12-1 in the time period. 7 more fights despite having a layoff himself. To give another perspective, Aldo is just 2-1 since McGregor returned from layoff. McGregor since then? 7-1. While breaking every record in the game and media obligations coming out of his ears. He's right when he rags on half the roster, all of them talk a good game, but he turns up, and a lot of them don't. Aldo doesn't even want to fight unless it's against McGregor, and I 100% get it, 100%. 155 has 2 guys with equal reason to get the next shot. Gun to my head I'd rather see McGregor defend against Ferguson or Khabib, but then, I'd probably get killed anyway because how do you gauge who deserves it more? I mean, I guess you could say that since Johnson beat Ferguson and Khabib beat Johnson that Khabib should get the nod.

 

[LoganGambit87]

Mystic Mac indeed - tweet from 2014

 

[I'm Batman.]

Personally, I want to see McGregor fight all three in a row so it doesn't particularly bother me which order he fights them in.

 

[B]

Yep, if Aldo kept a champion's schedule like Ben Henderson I could understand the calls for McGregor to hurry up. To put things into perspective when Aldo fought Mendes for the first time, Holloway was a 4-0 prospect booked to make his UFC debut. After his next fight he'll likely be 17-3 or 16-4. 16 fights. Aldo has had 6 fights in that period. McGregor himself won 2 titles in Cage Warriors, debuted in the UFC, managed to take 11 months off himself with ACL surgery, beat 3 top 10 guys, knocked out Aldo, went up 2 weight classes, lost, avenged the defeat, then went down another class and knocked out the champion to go 12-1 in the time period. 7 more fights despite having a layoff himself. To give another perspective, Aldo is just 2-1 since McGregor returned from layoff. McGregor since then? 7-1. While breaking every record in the game and media obligations coming out of his ears. He's right when he rags on half the roster, all of them talk a good game, but he turns up, and a lot of them don't. Aldo doesn't even want to fight unless it's against McGregor, and I 100% get it, 100%. 155 has 2 guys with equal reason to get the next shot. Gun to my head I'd rather see McGregor defend against Ferguson or Khabib, but then, I'd probably get killed anyway because how do you gauge who deserves it more? I mean, I guess you could say that since Johnson beat Ferguson and Khabib beat Johnson that Khabib should get the nod.

Personally I have no sympathy for Jose Aldo at all. When he was champion, admittedly yes he did defend the title several times which McGregor hasn't, but he also was in absolutely no rush whatsoever to defend the title pulling out of several fights & in a couple of cases guys did what McGregor did against Mendes ie risking their No. 1 contender shot, ended up losing & never got any calls or 2nd thoughts from Aldo. I've said before as well, it wouldn't surprise me if McGregor is purposely making him wait out of spite for him pulling out of their first fight 3 weeks out after having done months & months of media tours, traveling the world with him hyping up that initial proposed fight.

As for Khabib & Ferguson, I think both of those guys should fight each other with the winner getting a LW title shot. However if I had to choose 1 of them, I think Tony Ferguson is the No. 1 contender. Khabib might very well be undefeated, but he's had 2 fights in the last 2 years both of those were against guys who were not really knocking on the door for a title shot. His last win before that was against Dos Anjos BEFORE he went on a 6 fight win streak & title tear that's how long ago his win over him was, the division has changed drastically. Meanwhile in the same 2 years Tony Ferguson's on a 6 fight win streak finishing 4 out of 6 of those wins & dismantling Dos Anjos more recently, I feel he's far more deserving currently than Khabib.

I think McGregor's next fight should be either rematch with Aldo for FW title, defend LW title against Cerrone or complete a trilogy fight with Nate Diaz for LW title. I think he should avoid Woodley at all costs, he far too big for him.

 

[LoganGambit87]

if his next fight isn't at FW but he still gets to keep the title than ufc is a joke

 

[I'm Batman.]

Oddsmakers set Nate Diaz, Tyron Woodley as most likely next opponents for Conor McGregor

Check out the full list of betting odds for McGregor's next opponent below. All odds are current as of the time of this writing.

• Nate Diaz +175
• Tyron Woodley +300
• Khabib Nurmagomedov +400
• Jose Aldo +500
• Nick Diaz +650
• Georges St-Pierre +700
• Tony Ferguson +750
• Max Holloway +1000
• Frankie Edgar +3000
• Stephen Thompson +3500

Don't know how often sportsbooks get this kind of thing right, but it's a little interesting to see how the pros see this likely playing out. Hadn't considered Woodley a lot though it seems somewhat obvious. The rest fall in line with how most would imagine them.

 

[B]

if his next fight isn't at FW but he still gets to keep the title than ufc is a joke

You say that but having an interim champion have to defend that title isn't so bizarre or odd. I'm sure if I looked into it there would be cases in which an interim champion will have defended his title (at the time) more times than the reigning champion. Obviously though different circumstances & reasons for having such defences injury, suspension, pullouts etc.

The UFC is already a joke in this respect, they need to establish some ironclad rules in relation to their titles as the main reason a lot of people seem to be getting their panties in a twist is because it all seems to be done on a case by case basis which tend to contradict one another.

I'm very much in favour of abolishing interim titles, the case is simply a champion must defend once every 6 months or at the very maximum 10 months, if they cannot do that due to their own fault ie they get injured, suspended or have some sort of non-fighting problem they get stripped. Like look how long Dominick Cruz held up the Bantamweight title through injury, must have easily been near 2 years, Velasquez at HW & I think even Weidman at MW, all fighters that suffered a run of bad luck with injuries but as a result ended up shelving their divisions for extended periods.

 

[TheVileOne]

He's never fighting at featherweight again, no matter what he says. When McGregor cuts to featherweight, he looks like 100 miles of bad road and he's about to die. Those cuts don't get easier as you get older. Not to mention, McGregor has been fighting heavier his last three fights. I don't think it will be so easy for him to drop back to 145.

The UFC enabled him to do this. I'm not happy about it, but that's what happened. He got the special history making moment, but he can't hold on to both belts.

I don't care what Ariel Helwani says. The reason he can't hold both is because he can't realistically defend both. He's going to be having a kid or kids, so he's already about to take some time off.

There are too many contenders in line at both 145 and 155. 155 is the most stacked shark infested division in MMA. So he's going to focus on that AND all those rematches at 145 pounds? He's not interested at all in an Aldo rematch, and I doubt he'd get up for a Max Holloway rematch.

It doesn't matter that McGregor beat Holloway several years ago. The guy has gone an incredible run and earned his shot. If McGregor isn't going to grant him a chance at the belt, then he can't hoard and just say he's the last featherweight champion forever.

 

[B]

Rashad's been pulled from UFC 206 after the Ontario Athletic Commission expressed the same concerns as the New York State Athletic Commission regarding his medical exams.

It's got to be something brain related showing on his pre-fight scans, got to be.

 

[TheVileOne]

Time for him to retire. Middleweight wasn't going to happen.

 

[B]

If there are legitimate health concerns for him in which having another fight in a state that will sanction him could have a higher probability to ruin his quality of life in some way, then he should for sure retire & not risk it.

Dana posted a picture of him on Instagram just after he was pulled from UFC 205 & he weighed 195lbs & looked fantastic. It's a move I felt he should have made when Silva was still champion.

 

[I'm Batman.]

Yeah, that's weird. Maybe there needs to be more testing and Evans doesn't want any family not close to him to fear the worst?

 

[TheVileOne]

If there are legitimate health concerns for him in which having another fight in a state that will sanction him could have a higher probability to ruin his quality of life in some way, then he should for sure retire & not risk it.

Dana posted a picture of him on Instagram just after he was pulled from UFC 205 & he weighed 195lbs & looked fantastic. It's a move I felt he should have made when Silva was still champion.

That's still another 10 pounds of weight the body wasn't meant to lose.

It could be brain damage.

 

[LoganGambit87]