New York is finally in play for the UFC.
Saturday night at Madison Square Garden the promotion will reach the summit of its greatest fight by putting on some of its greatest fights, overcoming years of bickering with unions and crooked politicians to give the world a triple main event of title bouts.
At the top of the card, predictably, is the impenetrable Irishman who’s rocketed to superstardom without even a hint of running low on fuel, Conor McGregor. McGregor will look to be the first man to hold gold in two divisions at the same time when he faces Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight belt.
The narrative has been pretty basic overall, focusing mostly on McGregor as an unstoppable force who hasn’t been pushed in the UFC outside of his shock loss to Nate Diaz at UFC 196—a loss he avenged in August as a means of correcting course and taking back control of the discussion surrounding his career.
This week alone he’s been compared to Muhammad Ali, wielded a steel chair like ’90s pro wrestler La Parka and swaggered around New York in mink and a Rolls Royce. There’s appeal in that persona, this loudmouth, rich, wild man who does what he wants and answers to no one, all on his way to hoisting two gold belts in the Octagon.
But what if it’s all for naught? What if there’s a foil lurking in the form of Alvarez and no one’s paying attention while he prepares to stun the sport?
Alvarez is a tough out for anyone, and that includes McGregor. He’s durable almost to a fault, experienced against high-level talent both inside the UFC and beyond and he’s riding high on confidence that no McGregor opponent has shown other than Diaz—who is, coincidentally, the only man to beat McGregor in the past six years.
In the lead-up to their bout, McGregor has tried various means of mental warfare, a trademark approach that saw him beat men like Jose Aldo and Dustin Poirier before they ever entered the cage. Shots fired about Alvarez changing fight camps or being chinny haven’t had much effect, and even when McGregor dug into his bag for personal attacks and comments about family, Alvarez didn’t react.
Continuously he’s snickered, shrugged or fired back with something pretty good himself. With his patented North Philadelphia bluster, Alvarez has mocked McGregor’s style and skill and thrown in a few personal barbs of his own. He also sent McGregor into a fit by simply laying a chair on the floor next to him at the pre-fight press conference, leading to the featherweight champion being dragged off the stage by security to cool down.
Not even Diaz got that level of reaction with anything he did, and he was credited by many as providing the blueprint for dealing with McGregor’s antics outside the fight. Most of their insanity was mutual.
Inside the chain link, Alvarez has the potential to be a nightmare for McGregor. Though he’s historically had a penchant to be drawn into a firefight, his game in the UFC has been one of much more measured commotion. He’s built his recent success on good boxing backed up by strong wrestling that he uses as a near-perfect complement to his hands. He’s durable and has improved his conditioning in recent years, meaning he can develop any game plan imaginable and implement it at a good pace.
Those developments have made him champion, and they’re also what the perfect foil to McGregor would rely on in order to succeed. The ability to withstand punishment, dish a little out on the feet and then grind away over several rounds with wrestling and clinch work seems to be the recipe to topple Ireland’s top export.
The problem for most guys—indeed, all guys with the exception of Diaz—has come in executing. It’s far easier said than done on a physical level, and when McGregor has burrowed so deep into your head in the weeks leading up to your crack at him, it becomes that much harder.
For Alvarez, though, he seems to be in the best state of mind out of any McGregor opponent to date. He’s unruffled mentally, and he is even firing back himself. Physically he has all the tools required to retain his title and stop McGregor’s legacy in its tracks.
While we were all watching nice clothes, swinging chairs and trash talk, Alvarez may have been emerging as the perfect foil to McGregor right before our eyes. On Saturday night, he has the chance to prove as much.
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