The Question: If Conor McGregor Wins UFC Lightweight Title, What Happens Next?

When UFC 205 hits the bright lights of New York, the promotion’s biggest star will fittingly stand in the spotlight as both the headliner and the main attraction. The latter designation is true for both fans and the rest of the fighters within th…

When UFC 205 hits the bright lights of New York, the promotion’s biggest star will fittingly stand in the spotlight as both the headliner and the main attraction. The latter designation is true for both fans and the rest of the fighters within the second division he’s attempting to lord over.

If McGregor can defeat Eddie Alvarez on Nov. 12—and he’s a favorite to do so, according to Odds Shark—he’ll become the first UFC fighter ever to simultaneously hold belts in two divisions.

Back in his original featherweight class, McGregor is mostly just a shadow. He hasn’t defended the belt a single time since knocking out Jose Aldo last December and shows little inclination to do so.

Coming soon: matching lightweight turmoil?

Several reporters, including Barry Moran of major UK newspaper The Sun, have reported McGregor will take a lengthy break after this fight, meaning the UFC could have a two-division champ putting both belts on ice for the foreseeable future.

Should everyone panic? Fire up the interim belt-making machine? Joining me to discuss the development is Bleacher Report’s MMA lead writer Chad Dundas.

Mike Chiappetta: Chad, I have to start this off by admitting I enjoy a little chaos from time to time. If McGregor wins and goes on a sabbatical, we get two-division chaos. The featherweight division has already gone a little bit nuts. Jose Aldo has basically retired out of frustration, Frankie Edgar is pissed and Max Holloway is pissed, too. 

Meanwhile, the 155ers have barely gotten a taste of McGregor, and Khabib Nurmagomedov is out here telling Luke Thomas that if the UFC bypasses him for another title shot, he’ll flex his political muscle to keep the promotion out of Russia.

That kind of threat is one hell of an escalation, so I’d say we’re off to a pretty good start as far as the chaos goes.

Let’s try to look into some of the possible scenarios, going on the assumption of a McGregor win. Even if he decides to take off a few months, literally everyone on the roster from 170 pounds down will want a crack at him. But what seems like the most likely path?

To be blunt, he’ll chart his own path. Whether he wants Nurmagomedov, Aldo or decides, Hey, why not go for that 170-pound belt because I’ve won a fight there, it’s going to be his call. The UFC has ceded that power to him.

While there are plenty of options, I think he goes back to the well and squares up with Nate Diaz one more time with the trilogy and a belt on the line.

Diaz has made him the most money and will again. With a championship in the balance, it’s an easy sell. Sure, you can argue about whether Diaz deserves it, but in today’s UFC, that’s an exercise in futility. The booking philosophy is in money matchups, and nothing burns hotter than McGregor-Diaz.

Chad, what do you think? Is there anyone else out there who makes dollars and sense for McGregor? Does Alvarez’s profile get raised enough for a possible rematch? Does Nurmy’s trash talk move him into the conversation? 

Chad: Mark this down as the fourth or fifth McGregor fight in a row where I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen. All I can say with any certainty is that win, lose or draw, he’s going to have some decisions to make when it’s over. 

It’s a big leap to just flatly assume McGregor will wrench the 155-pound title away from the current champ. Short of Aldo, Alvarez stacks up as the Irishman’s toughest competition to date inside the Octagon. Regardless of what the odds say, I think McGregor is going to wind up having his hands full.

For the purposes of this discussion, I suppose I’m willing to assume Mystic Mac’s magical march through the UFC continues. As you correctly surmise, a McGregor victory might make the vaunted lightweight division a different place than we’re used to seeing.

The thing we can definitively say is that McGregor will promptly wad up any notion of standard UFC rankings and toss them in the nearest trash bin. This guy is going to chase the biggest money fight he can get, always and forever. That would probably be bad news for Nurmagomedov. It would probably be bad news for Tony Ferguson. And yeah, probably bad news for Alvarez in defeat, too.

To answer the question of who McGregor would fight next, we just need to answer the question of which opponent will make him the most money. Nate Diaz? Great possibility. Nick Diaz? Maybe if they could agree on a weight. Georges St-Pierre? If he and the UFC can come to terms, sure. Robbie Lawler? Maybe an outside chance.

I’ll tell you what would surprise me, though: the UFC letting McGregor take an extended break from the cage without a significant struggle. Considering all we’ve leaned about how important people like McGregor and Ronda Rousey are to the UFC’s bottom line and how much the fight company’s new owners will have to increase profits during the next year, it seems impossible they’d let him cool his heels for much of that time.

What say you, Mike? Is this the last time we see McGregor in the cage for a while? Or will a mutual love of money between fighter and a promoter keep…pulling…him…back…in?   

Mike: If he wins, McGregor is going to do whatever McGregor wants to do.

Let’s be blunt: He’s basically called his shots over the last year of his career. The UFC can try to corral him or steer him in a direction, but the only time it tried to take a stand—when it booted McGregor from UFC 200—what happened? It still eventually gave in to his demand to fight Diaz, and he ended up breaking UFC’s all-time pay-per-view event record, per MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer. 

This is a man with growing clout, and a victory over Eddie Alvarez in another fight that is likely to sell huge is only going to increase that. 

Part of the fascination with this possible scenario is that the UFC has never had someone with this kind of bargaining power. The new UFC ownership has some truly aggressive earnings numbers to meet. Any extended absence for McGregor would only hurt its chase of those goals. 

The interesting thing is McGregor knows that. He knows his worth and importance, so would you really put it past him to publicly announce a hiatus and put two belts on ice while privately telling the UFC there is a number that might pull him back in a little quicker than he originally planned? Could it be a negotiation ploy?

Because let’s face it, even if the UFC acknowledges his worth, that doesn’t mean it’s going to willingly hand over every dollar he requests. There is still an often-painful back-and-forth that goes on behind the scenes before those monster paydays, and while some athletes are loathe to go through that kind of scenario, McGregor seems to relish his ability to play his hand and cash in.

But to circle back to our original question of what happens to the lightweight division in the case of a McGregor win, I think the top five fighters should take a good long look at what’s happened to their featherweight brothers and know that same thing might be coming their way. The best thing they can do is to angle for McGregor in both words and actions and hope he looks their way. If McGregor wins, we’re moving into unprecedented territory, and the division might be in for an unprecedented wait. 

Chad, what do you foresee? 

Chad: I guess we ought to at least consider the possibility that McGregor is a human being who might legitimately need some time off.

This bout against Alvarez marks his fourth UFC appearance in 11 months. That’s a lot for a championship-level competitor, and it includes two exhaustive press tours leading up to his rescheduled bout with Aldo at UFC 194, the back-to-back blood feuds with Nate Diaz and the ordeal of getting pulled out of UFC 200—that last one ostensibly for reasons of fatigue and/or simple annoyance.

With the news of the UFC’s $4 billion sale to WME-IMG still so fresh in our minds, we’re all focusing a lot on this business’ bottom line financially. Rousey said during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last week that her upcoming return against Amanada Nunes at UFC 206 is “definitely one of my last fights” (via MMAFighting), which only intensifies that focus. If Rousey is truly living out her last days as a UFC fighter, it only makes McGregor more important and more valuable.

But we’re sort of doing everyone a disservice here if we don’t also point out how grueling and emotionally taxing this sport can be—especially for someone participating at McGregor‘s level. He’s still just 28 years old, but it would be tough to blame him if he felt like he needed some R&R after spending the last three-and-a-half years building himself into the biggest pay-per-view draw MMA has ever known.

He’s also nothing if not a prescient and self-aware businessman. These days, McGregor seems to be spending a noticeable amount of time trying to establish and promote his new lifestyle brand. Like Rousey, is he already plotting his escape from the world of active professional fighting?

We won’t know. Not for a while. What we do obviously agree on, however, is that if McGregor can pull off a victory over Alvarez and capture the lightweight title on Nov. 12, he’ll continue to be the master of his own destiny. It’ll still be his world, and the rest of us—including the UFC itself—will merely continue to live in it. 

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