All looked lost earlier this week when it appeared UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo would be forced to withdraw from his highly anticipated bout with the “Notorious” Conor McGregor at UFC 189 on July 11 in Las Vegas.
Curses were uttered at the futility of it all, and many tears were shed—particularly by Irish fans who were afraid they had purchased expensive plane tickets for naught.
After months of anticipation, a worldwide media tour and the most expensive television commercial in UFC history, losing what looked like it might well be a fight for the ages would have been a crushing blow. UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier spoke for us all on Twitter with a plaintive “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!”
Aldo was said to be just as distraught as the rest of us.
“He cried. He wants this fight bad, everybody invested a lot in this,” his coach Andre Pederneiras told Combate (translation by MMAFighting.com). “I was with him the whole afternoon. He’s heartbroken.”
On Wednesday, however, the MMA community collectively issued a huge sigh of relief when the UFC, after several cryptic messages, finally issued a statement. Aldo’s injured ribs, it turned out, were bruised but not broken. The fight, assuming Aldo gets the Nevada Athletic Commission to rubber-stamp his own doctor’s findings, is back on.
That’s a reason to celebrate.
And, yet, despite the many reasons to cheer, I can’t help but think the fight we all wanted disappeared at the first mention of a potential training-camp injury. Suddenly, a bout that pitted the brash newcomer against the unique style of the most dominant featherweight in MMA history is gone.
Left in its place is something that looks similar at first glance—but is actually quite different.
What was once a win-win scenario—either the crowning of a charismatic new star or an affirmation of one of the sport’s long-standing elites—has been cheated of its gravity by an overzealous training partner. Now, should McGregor win, he’s just the guy who beat an injured champion. It’s an accomplishment that, consciously or not, every fan will have to downgrade.
Would McGregor have won without the injury? Is he really the best featherweight in the world?
Those questions would help a rematch immensely but nonetheless make UFC 189 seem like something less than the perfect storm. Sure, McGregor would be the proud owner of a UFC title. But it would be tarnished gold—a win only the hardest of hardcore McGregor fans could truly celebrate.
McGregor is a true fighter. He believes he’s better than Aldo. He wants to make his case in the most definitive way possible. He wants to beat Aldo at his very best. Unfortunately, there is no best-case scenario. Not anymore. There is only the lesser of two evils—a win against an obviously diminished foe.
That’s no fit way to begin the McGregor Era.
Worse still would be a McGregor loss. Right now the UFC has a hot property on its hands, He would have remained a potential box-office star win or lose against Aldo—at least against a healthy Aldo. But, after all his posturing and crude trash talk, can McGregor afford to lose to an Aldo the world knows isn’t at the peak of his powers?
McGregor has a gift for fight promotion. But, at the heart of his trash talk is performance. He gets away with it because he goes out to the cage and makes it true. That’s the difference between boxers Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Adrien Broner. One has a shelf life—the other is immortal.
This fight was supposed to be special. It was a chance for one of the smaller weight classes, for the first time, to step into the limelight and prove it can draw big money for the UFC. The stars seemingly had aligned. McGregor is the breath of fresh air the promotion has prayed for. Aldo is the perfect foil, the long-standing champion with the big reputation.
This was going to be the Fight of the Year—the rare bout that’s a combination of sport and spectacle. Now? It may still be an excellent fight. The two may go into the Octagon and have the amazing stylistic matchup we all crave—a clash between Aldo’s straight-ahead muay thai and McGregor’s slick karate and intricate footwork.
But something will be missing. Doubt will linger. We’ll wonder what might have been had the two both been at full strength.
Now, instead of being the definitive clash between two icons, it’s just another fight for a belt. And that’s a real shame.
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