Anyone who has been inside the blast radius of Conor McGregor‘s pyrotechnic celebrity knows the UFC featherweight champion doesn’t do subtlety.
Considering the stunning success of McGregor‘s three-and-a-half-year assault on MMA‘s status quo, it’s possible the only thing the bombastic Irishman hasn’t mastered is restraint. Otherwise, he’s been nearly peerless, establishing himself as one of the sport’s best fighters, most accomplished business minds and articulate pitchmen all at once.
It was no surprise, then, that when The Notorious closed out 2016 by trying his luck at lightweight, the situation demanded a superfight against 155-pound champion Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205.
As a gesture, it’s pure McGregor: an over-the-top, kick-in-the-door main event on the biggest fight card of the year.
You have to marvel at the sheer audacity.
But it wouldn’t be MMA without dissenting opinions, of course—and there are fight fans who aren’t buying what McGregor is selling this time. A Twitter search for his name after the Alvarez bout was announced in September revealed McGregor‘s New World Order isn’t being unilaterally praised:
These people aren’t wackos, either. Their criticisms are grounded in truth—McGregor does get special treatment from the UFC.
Then again, the notion that this man, who has become the organization’s biggest-ever pay-per-view draw, doesn’t “deserve” the opportunities he’s getting sort of misses the point.
Granted, McGregor had to leapfrog a backlog of contenders in the promotion’s most competitive division to land this fight. But to believe he shouldn’t be here requires a myopic, outmoded way of looking at the fight game.
That’s especially true now that WME-IMG’s nearly $4 billion purchase of the UFC has reimagined the sport’s landscape. Money—not rankings, not competition and certainly not what someone “deserves”—is king.
That may be a bitter pill for some longtime MMA fans, but there is no cure other than making peace with it. So long as increased profits and fiscal responsibility are the orders of the day, it’s going to be that way.
Everything else is just background noise, and sputtering protests aside, the truth is, McGregor vs. Alvarez was the right match to make in the lightweight division.
It’s the champion vs. champion superfight the likes of which the UFC promised fans as far back as 2013 but until now had not delivered. It might well break the fight company’s all-time record for PPV buys held by UFC 202 (1.65 million) and in so doing make everybody involved more money than all of Alvarez’s other, admittedly more qualified suitors, combined.
It is history, as McGregor tries to become the first fighter to simultaneously hold belts in two different UFC weight classes. It is the pursuit of greatness. It is the sort of chance that might only come along once in even the most remarkable of careers.
And let’s not forget it was Alvarez who called out McGregor in the first place.
After taking the title from Rafael Dos Anjos via first-round knockout in July, Alvarez quipped at the post-fight press conference that he was ready for an “easier fight.” The cakewalk opponent he wanted was McGregor.
“I deserve that,” Alvarez said at the time. “I’ve been fighting the best guys, so I would like a gimme fight. So, Conor, I more than welcome that.”
Don’t let the bravado from either side fool you, though. Aside from making all the financial sense in the world, this is going to be one hell of a fight, too.
As a matchup of styles, it might as well be a stick of dynamite, pitting Alvarez’s high-octane striking game and pressure wrestling against McGregor‘s stalking, left-handed power punches.
As McGregor‘s promotional debut at 155 pounds, it also comes preloaded with questions about how he’ll handle yet another weight adjustment. He hasn’t fought at that weight since 2012, when he briefly reigned as a two-division champion in the Cage Warriors organization.
If his protracted blood feud with Nate Diaz proved anything this year, it was that the one-touch KO power McGregor used to terrorize the featherweight ranks during seven previous UFC bouts (all of them wins) didn’t necessarily follow him to 170.
How that power translates to lightweight is the defining question of this latest challenge, too. Because you better believe Alvarez will test him on every level.
Once a reckless, throw-from-the-heels striker, the 32-year-old Philadelphia native has grown cagey during his two-year UFC run. After losing his Octagon debut to Donald Cerrone at UFC 178, Alvarez has rattled off three straight victories, capped by his title win over Dos Anjos.
Pure heavy-handedness will likely be McGregor‘s greatest advantage, and it’s unclear how much Alvarez will stand and trade with him. The safer, saner option is to try to use takedowns and pressure against the fence to test the featherweight kingpin’s sometimes-sketchy gas tank.
Especially in the first fight against Diaz, McGregor‘s cardio failed him quickly. If Alvarez can turn this meeting into a protracted grind, he may be able to seize the upper hand in the later rounds.
“Of course, he has that left hand, and I think he has good reflexes,” Alvarez told the Daily Mail Online’s Spencer Morgan this week. “I think his reflexes are some of the quickest in the division, but it only lasts for seven or eight minutes and then it goes away. It’s a non-issue after that time.”
But Alvarez also has a hard-earned reputation for being incredibly game. Even if he intends to implement a conservative strategy, he won’t shy away from a firefight if it comes to it. If he allows himself to get sucked into a slugfest in the early rounds, it might give McGregor his best chance to win, though.
McGregor is a slight favorite, according to Odds Shark, but Alvarez shapes up as his most difficult UFC opponent short of Jose Aldo.
End result? Nobody knows for sure what will happen.
That goes double for afterward.
If Alvarez retains, it might go a long way toward returning the lightweight division to the sober, merit-based matchmaking system some fans are hungry to see again. If McGregor wins, however, all bets are off.
Yet, something would soon have to give with McGregor‘s 145-pound title. He has not defended that championship since taking it from Aldo via 13-second knockout at UFC 194. If he won’t return to featherweight to rematch interim champion Aldo in a unification bout, the organization would likely move to strip him of that title.
As reigning lightweight champion, however, McGregor likely wouldn’t deign to take lower-profile matchups against any of the contenders he jetted past to face Alvarez.
Instead, he might set up a third bout against Diaz or even eschew 155 pounds altogether to trek up to welterweight in search of big fights against opponents such as Georges St-Pierre, Robbie Lawler or the 170-pound champion (whoever that may be after Tyron Woodley fights Stephen Thompson at UFC 205).
Just to add another layer of intrigue, McGregor and the UFC have been teasing a major announcement to be made following this fight. Rumors have swirled that after four fights in 11 months, he might need to take an extended break. But it’s also possible he has something out-of-the-box hidden up his sleeve.
All of this only increases the stakes of this fight. If you hunger for a return to a rankings-based competitive philosophy, then cheering on Alvarez seems like your best option. If you enjoy the madcap spectacle of McGregor‘s continued rise, then stick with your guy. Especially if the possibility exists this is the last time we’ll see him for a while.
No one can predict the future which, with apologies to the purists, is half the fun.
Whatever McGregor does next, the only thing we know for sure is he won’t do it quietly.
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