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Conor McGregor vs. Dennis Siver: Is It the Right Call?

Last week, it was announced brash UFC featherweight contender Conor McGregor will take on Russian/German kickboxer Dennis Siver in front of a pro-Irish crowd Jan. 18 in Boston. McGregor vs. Siver will be an emotionally charged contest, with the pa…

McGregor has managed to back up his trash talk in his undefeated UFC career thus far with one-sided wins over Diego Brandao, and most recently Dustin Poirier. The outspoken Irishmen has his sights set on another opponent, even if it means he’s not fighting for a belt. That opponent, Siver, a 35-year-old veteran, is ranked 10th in the featherweight division and defeated Charles Rosa earlier this month.

Siver, while more than a credible opponent, has lost some traction as of late. He’s gone 1-1-[1] in his last three fights and was suspended for the majority of this year for testing positive for HCG. Questions as to whether he deserves to headline a fight card so soon have been asked and subsequently answered by Dublin’s own.

“I’m going to rip his head off. I’m going to punish him for it,” McGregor told reporters in Brazil last Friday. “It is what it is. When you look down the roster, there’s a lot of people matched up. Plus, he spoke out of turn. He should’ve kept his mouth shut.”

The Russian-born Siver was once considered a threat to the 155- and 145-pound crowns but was halted at the gates by Donald Cerrone and resurgent Cub Swanson, respectively. He is a large featherweight and a game opponent who can unleash a barrage of bone-crushing kicks and powerful hooks at any moment. Siver also possesses solid jiu-jitsu and wrestling skills.

The former contender may not have made the smartest move by jawing with the upstart McGregor, who sits at No. 5 in the featherweight rankings. The 26-year-old has amassed 16 wins in mixed martial arts after he began his career in 2008.

McGregor‘s fighting style is complementary to the venom that comes forth from his mouth. With an in-your-face, always-pushing-forward type of game plan, he gives opponents no time to rest; it’s something you want to do if you’re going to beat Jose Aldo.

McGregor is on the fast track to a title shot and he has no plans on waiting; he willingly accepted this fight. A win over a game veteran will do little to improve his standing but a loss, which is always possible, would be a severely disappointing blow to his title aspirations.

McGregor will undoubtedly be a heavy favorite going into this fight and is equipped with the tools to beat Siver. His stand-up skills are extraordinary and precise, landing 4.6 strikes per minute. The Dublin native fires off jabs and straight punches as fast as a Bugatti Veyron peels off the lot. McGregor effortlessly inflicts the body with crippling hooks and even throws in a spinning back kick or elbow. His ground game hasn’t been on display partly because his fights end so early.

While he has fought four times in the UFC, three of those fights have ended via first-round TKO. In his victory over Max Holloway, McGregor showed fight fans the other side of his offensive repertoire, taking down the youngster four times and making several passes before eventually achieving the mount.

McGregor insists he doesn’t look past opponents, but he has to be giddy about this matchup. Siver has been known to wilt under pressure and has been blitzed before by men like Swanson and Melvin Guillard. Siver‘s best opportunity to win may come by taking the fight to the ground or employing some dirty boxing and grinding McGregor against the cage. That is if he can catch the explosive, and super athletic, Irishman.

As far as the MMA world knows, McGregor may have no weaknesses. We’ve only seen him go the distance once in his UFC career. He hasn’t truly been tested yet, but if the bout with Poirier is any indication, it could be a reflection of unparalleled greatness.

A matchup with Siver is the only feasible opponent at 145-pounds for McGregor with names like Swanson, Frankie Edgar, Ricardo Lamas and Dennis Bermudez already booked. A win over Siver, for McGregor, means he combats complacency and collects a paycheck, all the while solidifying his position in the top five of the division.

Meanwhile, if Siver were to win, it might be comparable to Matt Serra derailing GSP’s ascension to the pound-for-pound forefront back in 2007. Alright, maybe not quite that bad, but it would hurt McGregor and UFC brass tremendously.

If McGregor bests Siver in January, UFC President Dana White thinks Aldo will meet him sometime next summer, which would mean a potential layoff of six to eight months. That’s much more manageable than waiting 10-12.

Aldo is an interesting beast to figure out because he doesn’t have many weaknesses other than his cardio. The 28-year-old cuts a lot of weight but has cleaned up the issue. His chin can handle the best’s toughest shots, and his takedown defense rivals that of the departed Georges St-Pierre’s. McGregor poses no threat Aldo hasn’t seen before, and we’ve never seen a more emotional Aldo up until this second bout with Chad Mendes.

McGregor can say he’s going to beat the champ all he wants, but there’s a big difference between saying and doing.

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Aldo vs. Mendes 2: Key Stats, Top Moments from Thrilling Rematch at UFC 179

Jose Aldo, fighting in front of a lively home-nation crowd in Rio de Janeiro, defended his featherweight title for the seventh time in defeating challenger Chad Mendes by unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46).After an up-and-down undercard that feat…

After an up-and-down undercard that featured a couple of lopsided matches—Beneil Dariush and Phil Davis were especially impressive—and sucked the air out of the building faster than it did the fighter’s lungs, Aldo’s second win over Mendes delivered in just about every aspect. It was a close contest featuring stunning combinations, incredible takedown defenses, gore, guts and gumption.

Indeed, it is a fight worth revisiting. Let’s run through some of the top moments and key stats from the five-round scrap.

Round 1

Perhaps this header should say Round 1—And Then Some. The most controversial moment of the match took place just after the bell had sounded. Aldo, pouring forward with great intensity, rocked Mendes with a straight punch to the dome that sent the challenger wobbling.

Surprisingly, the referee did not deduct a point from Aldo. ESPN’s Brett Okamoto was beside himself:

That wasn’t the first instance of extracurricular play in the fight. Midway through the round, Mendes poked Aldo in the left eye, causing a brief stoppage in the bout while the official checked on Aldo.

Fox Sports Radio’s Heidi Fang would recap the action:

The eye injury would swell into an unrecognizable, puffy mess as the fight went on and affect Aldo’s vision. No point was deducted.

Both fighters scored minor knockdowns in the first, trading crushing hooks and furious geysers disguised as uppercuts. Aldo landed 37 significant strikes, while Mendes established his strategy of going high and low by targeting Aldo’s legs 18 percent of the time.

Round 3

After a second round that saw Mendes bounce around and do well to stay away from Aldo’s jab, the third round was a highly concentrated display of two furious fighters performing at their very best.

With just over two minutes in the round, Aldo rocked his opponent with a hook to the side of the head, but Mendes game back and delivered a vicious uppercut that would’ve taken most fighters off the mat.

Fang gave her take on the situation at hand:

UFC gave a taste of the slobber-knocking hits on display during the fight:

Aldo came right back with his own combination of blows and sent Mendes backward across the ring. Aldo pounced and drove a knee right into Mendes‘ ribcage.

Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole was impressed with the action on tap, and he also gave an update on Aldo’s eye:

Aldo finished with 21 significant strikes to Mendes‘ 10 in the round, although the latter had control of the round for just over a minute and was putting in an admirable display.

Round 5

Mendes put in a fine display in the fourth round, out-striking his foe 17-9 and making sure Aldo couldn’t go into the final frame with any confidence of pulling out a victory on points alone. The violence was etched onto both fighters’ faces. Aldo’s eye was a leaky, volcanic mess. Mendes‘ face was swollen, like he was allergic to leather and canvas.

Mendes scored the only takedown of the fight in this round after throwing a couple of hard lefts that staggered Aldo and took him into the cage. MMA journalist Josh Gross felt that the takedown might’ve been a mistake, as Mendes was doing quite well standing up:

The champion’s takedown defense was sublime and prevented Mendes from pressing his advantage. Both fighters finished the thrilling affair going toe-to-toe and trading violent blows. Aldo finished the round connecting on 41 percent of his strikes as compared to Mendes‘ 28 percent rate.

Iole provided the scorecard:

Aldo felt that he earned the victory, but also took time to give credit to Mendes.

“I think every fight is the toughest fight of my career,” Aldo said, via ESPN.com’s Brett Okamoto. “I think I deserved to win. He hit me a few times but I him a lot more. But congratulations to Chad Mendes. I have respect for him, his whole team, his family. Inside [the cage] it is a rivalry, but outside we’re friends.”

The fight was indeed a treat for fans watching both in Rio and across the globe. Aldo’s string of title defenses will cement his status as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. It’s quite possible that a bout against the dangerous Conor McGregor is in the works. The Irish fighter sent out this message after the bout:

Should either Aldo or Mendes take on McGregor, it would surely be a huge draw and generate an incredible amount of pre-bout coverage and analysis.

All fight stats courtesy of UFC.com unless otherwise noted.

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Bellator Should Keep Some Focus on Growing Prospects

When Scott Coker took over as president of Bellator MMA earlier this year, fans expected to see Viacom’s mixed martial arts property transform into something of an amalgamation of the Bellator we know and the defunct Strikeforce promotion.
In the…

In the span of just over four months, Coker has signed names like Bobby Lashley, Paul Daley, Melvin Manhoef, and Joe Schilling. Not to mention grabbing up UFC Hall of Famer Stephan Bonnar for a showdown with former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz.

The tournament format and weekly shows are gone, and Bellator is setting out to put on the biggest fights possible. But is it investing too much time and effort into aging legends and not enough into growing prospects?

The main event of Bellator 131 is between two UFC Hall of Famers who retired in UFC after going on irreversible slumps. If Ortiz vs. Bonnar was the best fight Bellator could make on a given card, then by all means, make it the main event. But the co-headliner of that show features two of their best fighters in the rematch between Michael Chandler and Will Brooks for the Bellator lightweight title.

That fight should be taking top billing as it’s a championship bout, and so all the casual-fan eyeballs gained by Tito Ortiz and Stephan Bonnar can be shown that Bellator has more to offer than just ex-UFC fighters looking to get a few more cracks at glory.

The better-known fighters should be used as a test against Bellator’s homegrown talent and in showcase fights against up-and-coming fighters. Aside from focusing on just its younger crop of talent already on the roster, Bellator should actively pursue legitimate prospects in mixed martial arts.

It is scooping up notable talents from the kickboxing, professional wrestling and jiu-jitsu worlds, but they need to try to get their hands on young talent from the MMA sphere. It does a good job of finding local fighters to fill up its undercards, but it needs to look deeper to scout the fighters who are making the bigger waves on the regional circuit.

I do think that once Bellator gets into the rhythm of putting on the events that Coker wants, the matchups will get better and the mix of homegrown talent, notable combat sports athletes, and the old guard can all fight each other, and if Coker plays his cards right, they can capitalize on some big fights along the way.

Coker certainly has the eye for prospects in mixed martial arts. Just look at the talent that came out of Strikeforce. Daniel Cormier, Ronda Rousey, Tyron Woodley, Tarec Saffiedine all came up through Strikeforce and are now making it at the upper echelon of the UFC.

Before it was bought by Zuffa and picked clean of stars, Strikeforce had a good balance of prospects and well-known fighters, and the Strikeforce Challengers series was a great way to showcase developing talent.

During a media tour for the upcoming Bellator 131 event, Coker told MMAFighting.com that the organization will continue to focus some of their efforts on new talent, saying:

As you guys know, I think we’re very good at building fighters from the ground up. We’ll buy some when the free-agency market starts heating up a little bit. But we’re going to take a step back [from PPV], why not build these fighters that we are going to promote in front of 100 million households.

Coker was referring to their shifting focus away from pay-per-view events and to putting big fights on Spike TV. The 10 seasons featuring tournaments have thus far given Bellator a solid base of homegrown talent.

Add in the big-name free agents that have been signed and Coker’s penchant for finding the next big star, and you’ve got the ingredients for a great roster and great shows.

Finding prospects in MMA is no easy task, and if brought along too quickly, their hype can fizzle out quickly. Coker has proven to be up to the task, and hopefully Bellator can renew its focus of growing prospects into legitimate contenders.

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UFC: Will Ronda Rousey vs. Cris ‘Cyborg’ Finally Happen in 2015?

Ten women have tried; 10 women have failed. Ronda Rousey is, with very little doubt, the best female fighter on the planet.
All doubt would cease to exist entirely if not for, you know, her.
If she didn’t exist, Rousey’s eight arm…

Ten women have tried; 10 women have failed. Ronda Rousey is, with very little doubt, the best female fighter on the planet.

All doubt would cease to exist entirely if not for, you know, her.

If she didn’t exist, Rousey‘s eight armbars and two TKO victories would be plenty of reason to permanently carve her name in the record books under “best ever.”

No, I’m not talking about Cat Zingano. She’s all but booked her New Year’s weekend ticket to Las Vegas for her UFC 182 bout with the champion, but she may as well not pay for the extra carry-on now since she won’t be bringing back 20 pounds of UFC gold with her. Zingano‘s had a knack for starting slow inside of the Octagon; Rousey‘s had a knack for starting fast. Like, “you’ve maybe got three minutes so show me what you’ve got” fast.

Then there’s Holly Holm. Should she get past the sacrificial lamb at UFC 181 in December, she’s bound to earn a title shot with the queen. But Rousey‘s not dumb; she’ll have no part of Holm‘s strikes. And let’s be real, if Rousey wants no part of the standup, she’ll have no part of the standup. So, no, we’re not talking about Holm here, either.

It also doesn’t look like Gina Carano’s ready to trade her silver-screen paychecks to start doing her own stunts in the UFC. Even if Dana White did manage to add enough zeros to Carano’s big payday, there’s no reason to assume she’d be competitive after a five- or six-year absence from fighting.

All right, let’s be honest here, you probably already guessed that I was talking about Cris “Cyborg” Justino. Her invincible aura may have come undone after she dropped her first bout—kickboxing or MMA—in almost 10 years, but there’s still a big portion of the MMA community that wants to see her step into the cage with the UFC superstar.

Cyborg once claimed that she was physically unable to make the cut to 135 pounds, meaning a bout with Rousey would only ever be able to take place outside of the bantamweight confines. But the champion took a firm stance, essentially forcing Cyborg to make the cut to 135 or lose hope of any potential fight for her crown.

“I really wanna fight Ronda,” she said on The MMA Hour in August 2012 “I really want to. She says bad things about me. I never say bad things about my opponent. I want to do my best in the octagon, and if she says she wants to fight me, she can come to my weight or at 140.”

With or without Cyborg, Rousey‘s career will continue to flourish.

That doesn’t mean we, including the UFC, don’t want to see the two take center stage of the Octagon before it’s all said and done. It’d be a historic payday for both women and we’d all be happy to provide them our hard-earned dollars.

But these two-year-old talks are growing tired now. With Rousey‘s dominance spread all across the UFC and only a few noteworthy opponents left for her to dispose of, Cyborg’s doing everything she can to make sure they don’t become three-year-old talks.

Call it a change of heart, call it an athletic compromise. It doesn’t matter, really; all we know is Cyborg won’t just stand around while Rousey batters her name outside the cage. Rousey told Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole:

I’ve said before, I don’t care if she’s injecting horse semen into her eyeballs, I’ll fight her, but that’s just my personal decision. But I can’t make a decision for the whole division. I can’t say it’s the right thing. This girl has been on steroids for so long and [has been] injecting herself for so long that she’s not even a woman anymore. She’s an ‘it.’ It’s not good for the women’s division. It’s not good at all.

Cyborg’s impending move down to bantamweight and the UFC’s purchasing of her employer should be reason to get excited of the hypothetical blockbuster bout that could be. For all we know, we may just be six months away from watching the greatest women’s MMA bout that could ever be.

Kristian Ibarra is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report. He also serves as the sports editor at San Diego State University’s student-run newspaper, The Daily Aztec. Follow him on Twitter at @Kristian_Ibarra for all things MMA.

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5 Best Moments of Jose Aldo’s Career

Jose Aldo’s latest title defense at UFC 179 will have little impact on his legacy.
Sure, Chad Mendes might be able to stamp his place in history by putting an end to Aldo’s 17-fight winning streak in front of what could be 11,000 of the champion’s coun…

Jose Aldo’s latest title defense at UFC 179 will have little impact on his legacy.

Sure, Chad Mendes might be able to stamp his place in history by putting an end to Aldo’s 17-fight winning streak in front of what could be 11,000 of the champion’s countrymen. Perhaps Aldo runs through Mendes once more, ruining Mendes‘ hopes of bringing a second title to Team Alpha Male.

He was the greatest MMA featherweight before fighting Mendes for a second time. He will be the greatest MMA featherweight after fighting Mendes for a second time.

The following slides illustrate the greatest moments that have helped solidify Aldo’s place in the UFC’s version of Cooperstown, New York.

Begin Slideshow

The Ultimate Fighter Takes on Breast Cancer Awareness

Las Vegas, NV – With the historic season of The Ultimate Fighter: A Champion Will Be Crowned in full swing, the 16 fighters vying for the opportunity to be the first UFC female 115-pound champion have shown the world they are both strong and beautiful, inside and out. Each has pushed herself to peak athleticism – prepared for any battle.
One opponent however, doesn’t care about strength, fitness or mental determination. Breast cancer will affect one in eight women in their lifetime and, despite the cast of The Ultimate Fighter being at the top of their physical prowess, they … Read the Full Article Here