Considering how much the UFC product has felt subpar of late, building up excitement for the major events on the calendar has felt more of a chore than a natural emotional reaction. With UFC 189, that hasn’t been the case.
Jose Aldo was originally supposed to face Conor McGregor for the featherweight championship, but Aldo was injured during training and is unable to compete. Even taking that into account, Saturday’s pay-per-view should be fantastic.
Looking at the show, these three questions have been among the more hotly debated over the past weeks and months leading up to Saturday.
Will Chad Mendes Expose Conor McGregor as All Sizzle and No Steak?
In a way, it might be better that Aldo was forced to pull out of his featherweight title bout with McGregor. Did fans want to see Aldo vs. McGregor? Of course. But that doesn’t mean McGregor was ready for a fight of that magnitude.
Although McGregor is a supreme self-promoter, it remains to be seen whether his in-ring work, despite those victories over Dustin Poirier and Dennis Siver, has reached that level. Beating Mendes would represent moving up one rung on the featherweight ladder.
UFC will certainly hope the 26-year-old lives up to the hype. ESPN’s Luke O’Brien wrote an extensive profile of McGregor and noted how his TKO win against Siver came at the perfect time for UFC:
The promotion has run into difficulty of late. Too many cards. Not enough stars. Incessant injuries. The slump owed in part to a gamble to go big and blast out as much MMA as possible to the world to create new viewers and grow the sport — a strategy that could eventually pay off, but the short-term result has been a watered-down product and a disgruntled core audience. Last year was especially bleak: Pay-per-view numbers hit new lows, and only one event registered more than 400,000 buys. Profits fell by an estimated 40 percent, and Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of the UFC’s parent company, Zuffa.
In terms of a stylistic matchup, McGregor couldn’t have imagined an opponent trickier than Mendes. Fightnomics author Reed Kuhn highlighted how Mendes is an excellent wrestler in the Octagon:
If Mendes can consistently get McGregor down to the mat, he’ll slowly suck the life out of the fight and tire McGregor out.
Should McGregor prevail Saturday, then he will have answered the critics who argue he isn’t ready to take that next step in the featherweight division.
Will Rory MacDonald Follow in Georges St-Pierre’s Footsteps and Win the UFC Welterweight Title?
For better or worse, Georges St-Pierre will never be too far behind when discussing Rory MacDonald. Since the two are training partners and fight in the welterweight division, a certain segment of UFC fans will always want to lump the two together, no matter how unfair the comparison is.
As much as the head-to-head comparisons don’t really hold up upon close examination, beating Robbie Lawler would put MacDonald and St-Pierre in the same company as UFC welterweight champs.
As much attention is being paid to McGregor vs. Mendes, Lawler’s title defense against MacDonald will likely be the best fight on the card. They needed the full three rounds to determine a winner their first bout, and a split decision wasn’t the most definitive result.
MacDonald is the superior technical fighter, but Lawler possesses a nearly unparalleled level of toughness and an ability to alter the trajectory of a fight with one timely punch. That could come in handy in a fight where the margin between the two combatants is bound to be razor-thin.
MacDonald has been tabbed for greatness for a while now. We’ll find out this weekend whether he’ll finally ascend to his welterweight throne.
Just How Good Will UFC 189 Be from Top to Bottom?
UFC 100 isn’t the gold standard when it comes to UFC PPVs, but the event was both a commercial and critical success. It remains the highest-grossing PPV in promotion history and boasted a card with St-Pierre, peak-Brock Lesnar, Thiago Alves and Dan Henderson, while Jon Jones was on the preliminary card.
Because of UFC’s current PPV strategy, it’s difficult to create the sort of buzz about PPVs that you saw in the past. An inability to create bankable stars combined with a glut of events has hurt the overall product more than it has helped.
Even without Aldo, UFC 189 is a bit of a return to the days of old. It boasts a ton of quality matchups all the way down to the prelims. Dana White went on UFC Tonight and proclaimed that Saturday’s PPV is on pace to topple many of the records set by UFC 100:
Making a ton of money doesn’t equate to a great show, however; Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao was the most lucrative boxing fight of all time, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who actually enjoyed the fight.
You expect White to play up the importance of UFC 189 and talk about how much interest surrounds the event. On Saturday night, we’ll find out whether he was justified in his praise.
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