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After his UFC 246 main event against Donald Cerrone later this month in Las Vegas, former 155-pound champion, Conor McGregor, will have registered more fights at welterweight than he has at lightweight, at least when it comes to his Octagon career.
And “Notorious” has been talking about a run at the 170-pound title for over three years.
That would be a grotesque mismatch, according to reigning division kingpin, Kamaru Usman, who insists the beating would be so savage it would trump what Khabib Nurmagomedov did at UFC 229 and perhaps even force the Irishman to retire.
“Just being real, that’s a tremendous mismatch,” Usman told MMA Fighting. “I think I would hurt him really, really bad. I mean we saw what Khabib did to him. He had to take some time off after the Khabib fight. Now imagine him fighting me. I don’t think we ever see him back in the sport.”
After winning the glass trophy on season 21 of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), Usman (16-1) has captured 10 straight wins as a UFC welterweight and is on the cusp of breaking the division record set by Georges St-Pierre back in late 2013.
As for McGregor (21-4), he split a pair of fights against Nate Diaz in his first trip up to the welterweight division and also stands at 1-1 as a lightweight, defeating Eddie Alvarez before getting choked into submission by Nurmagomedov.
The chances of “Notorious” ever fighting Usman at this stage of his career are undoubtedly remote.