Conor McGregor Opens As Significant Betting Favorite Over Nate Diaz

The betting odds are in for the new UFC 196 main event, and as expected, the champion opened up as a betting favorite over his short-notice replacement opponent.

UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor opened up as a near four-to-one favorite over…

conor-mcgregor-ufc-194-5

The betting odds are in for the new UFC 196 main event, and as expected, the champion opened up as a betting favorite over his short-notice replacement opponent.

UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor opened up as a near four-to-one favorite over UFC Lightweight contender Nate Diaz, who will now be fighting McGregor in the UFC 196 main event after UFC Lightweight Champion Rafael dos Anjos pulled out of the fight with a broken foot.

Bovada oddsmaker Jimmy Shapiro set McGregor as a -350 favorite over the +260 underdog. What this means is a $350 bet on McGregor will net you $100 if he wins, while a straight $100 bet on Diaz will earn you $260 if he pulls off the upset.

UFC 196: McGregor vs. Diaz takes place next Saturday night, March 5th, from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Complete Guide to UFC Fight Night 84: Silva vs. Bisping

Legacy.
That’s what’s at stake when Michael Bisping and Anderson Silva meet in London on Saturday for the biggest event the UFC has ever put on its Fight Pass platform.
Silva won 16 fights to begin his UFC career, including 10 defenses of his middlewei…

Legacy.

That’s what’s at stake when Michael Bisping and Anderson Silva meet in London on Saturday for the biggest event the UFC has ever put on its Fight Pass platform.

Silva won 16 fights to begin his UFC career, including 10 defenses of his middleweight title. A pair of losses—the first by knockout and the second via a devastating leg injuryto Chris Weidman knocked him off his throne and made the formerly immortal fighter look distinctly human. His return engagement against Nick Diaz became a no-contest after failed drug tests, and everything Silva has accomplished is now in question.

Bisping, on the other hand, has never reached such lofty heights. The promotion’s first star in the United Kingdom has been in the promotion since 2006 and has fought 24 times inside the Octagon, many of them as a headliner. Still, he has never broken through to the upper echelons of the division, and this likely represents his last shot at beating one of the elite.

Putting this event on Fight Pass is a gamble for the UFC as well. This fight would have drawn big numbers on Fox, Fox Sports 1 or even potentially on pay-per-view, and to make it Internet-only is a real test of what its homegrown platform can do now and in the future.

Outside of Bisping and Silva, this is a standard Fight Pass card stacked with local and regional fighters. Thales Leites and Gegard Mousasi meet in a solid co-main event, while bangers Francisco Rivera and Brad Pickett open up the main card.

Talented prospects such as Tom Breese, Makwan Amirkhani and Arnold Allen grace the rest of the card, and most of the fights offer something of interest.

Let’s take a look at each matchup.

Begin Slideshow

Chuck Liddell On Jon Jones: “I’d Be Big Trouble For Him”

https://youtu.be/bD_JolE1UPA

Ever since he was criticized him for not fighting at UFC 151 a few years ago, Jon Jones hasn’t been the biggest Chuck Liddell fan. If he caught the recent episode of “The Fighter And The Kid” podcast, he definitely won’t…

jones-liddell (2)

https://youtu.be/bD_JolE1UPA

Ever since he was criticized him for not fighting at UFC 151 a few years ago, Jon Jones hasn’t been the biggest Chuck Liddell fan. If he caught the recent episode of “The Fighter And The Kid” podcast, he definitely won’t be changing his mind anytime soon.

UFC Hall Of Famer Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell appeared on the weekly program this week and explained why he would be a bad style matchup for the former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion.

“We’ll see how he comes back,” Liddell said during his appearance on the show. “He always shows up to fight. He’s good at winning fights. If he keeps beating everybody he’s the best right now. I still think if he fought someone like me in my prime he would have a lot of trouble.”

Liddell continued, “The problem is he doesn’t hit hard enough to hurt me and he’s not going to out-wrestle me. He’s not going to out-wrestle me and I hit too hard for him. I would catch him sooner or later. Styles make fights.”

“What he does really well, if you’ve got a guy that’s a great striker, he can out-wrestle them,” Liddell said of Jones. “If he’s got a guy who’s a wrestler, he can out-strike him, out-point him. For me? I’d be big trouble for him because if he could take me down he wouldn’t be able to keep me down, if he even got a takedown. I will hit him. I’ll put my hands on him. I could still give him trouble.”

Jon Jones is scheduled to make his Octagon return at UFC 197, as he looks to regain his UFC Light Heavyweight Championship from the man who won it while he was suspended, Daniel Cormier.

UFC 197: Cormier vs. Jones II takes place on Saturday, April 23, 2016 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Is UFC Champion Conor McGregor the Craziest Man in Mixed Martial Arts?

It’s a given that everyone who steps into the cage to compete in a high-level mixed martial arts bout is incredibly tough, both mentally and physically. You have to be in order to walk willingly into the lion’s den to face off with another athlete. One…

It’s a given that everyone who steps into the cage to compete in a high-level mixed martial arts bout is incredibly tough, both mentally and physically. You have to be in order to walk willingly into the lion’s den to face off with another athlete. One who has spent years perfecting the craft of human-body annihilation.

A single fighter, however, is staking out a lone place at the pinnacle of this lunatic fringe, establishing himself as a fighter without feara man to whom limits are laughable.

Just 74 short days ago, Conor McGregor stepped into the Octagon to win the undisputed UFC Featherweight Championship from the great Jose Aldo. On Tuesday, the UFC announced that he will enter the cage again in 10 days to battle Nate Diaz at 170 pounds.

Fording that 25-pound gulf would rank among the most impressive accomplishments in UFC history.

Two men, both Hall of Famers, have earned UFC gold in two different weight classes. Two more, Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson, have competed at an elite level in three. That’s the company McGregor hopes to join—and the attempt alone is worthy of song.

Bleacher Report writers Jonathan Snowden and Mike Chiappetta sat down to discuss a fighter who isn’t content to conquer a single division.

Is it madness or are McGregor’s talents too vast for any one weight class to contain?

 

Mike Chiappetta: I’m glad we’re discussing this question because I don’t think people are appreciating McGregor’s riverboat gamble here. He is risking his aura and mission for multiple world titles for almost no reward!

The fight against Rafael dos Anjos was quite understandable. He was chasing history. But to stay on the card and then move up in weight to assuage his opponent’s short-notice troubles? That’s bonkers. 

We live in a world where boxer Canelo Alvarez is pressuring Gennady Golovkin to fight him at a 155-pound catchweight for the 160-pound middleweight belt, a five-pound swing that is threatening the bout’s signing. Everyone wants to either be the biggest one in the division or force the opponent to suck down to an unhealthy weight.

McGregor just doesn’t care. He’ll fight anywhere along the spectrum as long as he sees green.

Is his approach a bit reckless? In the long run, maybe. It harkens back to BJ Penn freelancing around divisions with no regard for logic, an experiment that was met with wildly mixed results. Then again, Penn was notorious for a, shall we say, “relaxed” work ethic, while McGregor trains like a madman.

While the Dos Anjos fight would have been far more meaningful, facing Diaz for no real stakes speaks to the courage befitting a (potential) legend in the making.

 

Jonathan Snowden: In the world of combat sports, words mostly breeze by like the wind. A lot of fighters have made a lot of money boasting about how big, bad and fearless they are. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, their handlers move mountains to ensure they rarely face anyone with a pulse.

McGregor, quite clearly at this point, is different. His braggadocio is backed by action, his willingness to face just about any man at any time proven by fate and circumstance.

When Dan Henderson was forced to drop out of UFC 151 a little more than a week before the fight, champion Jon Jones refused to step into the cage with Henderson’s former teammate, Chael Sonnen.

Henderson, at this point predominantly a striker hoping to land a Hail Mary right hand, presented an entirely different challenge than Sonnen, a wrestler who relied almost entirely on his powerful double-leg takedown. Jones, perhaps wisely, demurred, choosing to fight another day and forcing the UFC to cancel the event.

McGregor is a different kind of animal.

Faced with similar circumstances last year, McGregor gladly squared off with wrestling stalwart Chad Mendes instead of striking buzzsaw Jose Aldo. Here, again, he’s willing to trade Dos Anjos’ powerful pressure and top control for Diaz’s volume punching and dangerous bottom game.

Despite grumbling from some Internet critics, Diaz is no gimme fight. He’s a proven commodity, and the bout will be contested at a weight 15 pounds above the one McGregor was planning to weigh just 24 hours ago.

Do you think people may be underestimating the danger to McGregor here, Mike?

 

Chiappetta: If you want to be a stickler, you can reasonably say that Diaz does not present the same danger as Dos Anjos, who has transformed into a pretty fearsome fighting machine over the last few years.

With that said, most people complaining about this match are doing so based on the emotion of hearing the pairing rather than any sort of fight logic. Diaz is undeniably dangerous, as 11 of his 18 career wins are by submission, and he’s tapped out black belts before.

But McGregor has become an event fighter, so all of the X’s and O’s of fighting—the important stuff—get hidden behind his enormous personality, his headline-grabbing words and his aura. The fight becomes secondary. 

The point you make about Jones’ refusal to compete on short notice is a good example of why immediate backlash is often off the mark. The outrage against Jones was purely based on emotion. He had a very rational explanation: He and his team prepared for Henderson’s specific style and did not feel it was worth risking the title against a late replacement just to keep a date. That’s a very sensible approach and worthy of respect. 

Every athlete has the right to captain their own career as they see fit. Jones is on one end of the spectrum, but let’s be thankful of others like McGregor who steam forward with no need for brakes.

McGregor has said repeatedly that he does not train for any single man or style, and every time he’s been forced into situations that put that to the test, he raises his hand to volunteer. That alone is walking into danger.

 

Snowden: If I take off my “journalist” hat, and lord knows it doesn’t fit me particularly well, I’ll confess to cheering for McGregor in this fight. Not that I wish ill will toward Diaz—my fandom of that family’s exploits is long and legendary.

But I like the idea of the UFC making these kinds of small concessions to the rich history of combat sports.

In boxing, meandering through weight classes is common. At its worst, that’s a problem, an opportunity for fighters to duck certain rivals and ensure only the most favorable outcomes. But at its best, it gives us fights like “Sugar” Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Duran, epic battles between fighters who agree to see which champion is the better man.

That’s what a McGregor win offers. His success in several classes would allow UFC matchmakers to let their imaginations run wild, to make bouts that don’t necessarily fit within their current orthodoxies.

It’s a step toward fighters taking center stage. And that’s good, not just for McGregor but all who might dare follow him down this path.

 

Chiappetta: To bring it all back around to the question, Jonathan’s scenario proves why McGregor isn’t crazy at allnot by a long shot. All of this is due to him. The huge gates, the pay-per-view buyrates, the extra attention, it’s all self-created. It’s all because of McGregor. He has a plan, motivation and an appetite for risk.

Nothing great is achieved by following the mold. McGregor has broken out.

Some people claim they are chasing greatness, but he is doing it. Right in front of our eyes, day by day, minute by minute.

For the MMA world, that’s not cause for criticism. It’s cause for celebration.

 

Jonathan Snowden and Mike Chiappetta cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Is UFC Champion Conor McGregor the Craziest Man in Mixed Martial Arts?

It’s a given that everyone who steps into the cage to compete in a high-level mixed martial arts bout is incredibly tough, both mentally and physically. You have to be in order to walk willingly into the lion’s den to face off with another athlete. One…

It’s a given that everyone who steps into the cage to compete in a high-level mixed martial arts bout is incredibly tough, both mentally and physically. You have to be in order to walk willingly into the lion’s den to face off with another athlete. One who has spent years perfecting the craft of human-body annihilation.

A single fighter, however, is staking out a lone place at the pinnacle of this lunatic fringe, establishing himself as a fighter without feara man to whom limits are laughable.

Just 74 short days ago, Conor McGregor stepped into the Octagon to win the undisputed UFC Featherweight Championship from the great Jose Aldo. On Tuesday, the UFC announced that he will enter the cage again in 10 days to battle Nate Diaz at 170 pounds.

Fording that 25-pound gulf would rank among the most impressive accomplishments in UFC history.

Two men, both Hall of Famers, have earned UFC gold in two different weight classes. Two more, Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson, have competed at an elite level in three. That’s the company McGregor hopes to join—and the attempt alone is worthy of song.

Bleacher Report writers Jonathan Snowden and Mike Chiappetta sat down to discuss a fighter who isn’t content to conquer a single division.

Is it madness or are McGregor’s talents too vast for any one weight class to contain?

 

Mike Chiappetta: I’m glad we’re discussing this question because I don’t think people are appreciating McGregor’s riverboat gamble here. He is risking his aura and mission for multiple world titles for almost no reward!

The fight against Rafael dos Anjos was quite understandable. He was chasing history. But to stay on the card and then move up in weight to assuage his opponent’s short-notice troubles? That’s bonkers. 

We live in a world where boxer Canelo Alvarez is pressuring Gennady Golovkin to fight him at a 155-pound catchweight for the 160-pound middleweight belt, a five-pound swing that is threatening the bout’s signing. Everyone wants to either be the biggest one in the division or force the opponent to suck down to an unhealthy weight.

McGregor just doesn’t care. He’ll fight anywhere along the spectrum as long as he sees green.

Is his approach a bit reckless? In the long run, maybe. It harkens back to BJ Penn freelancing around divisions with no regard for logic, an experiment that was met with wildly mixed results. Then again, Penn was notorious for a, shall we say, “relaxed” work ethic, while McGregor trains like a madman.

While the Dos Anjos fight would have been far more meaningful, facing Diaz for no real stakes speaks to the courage befitting a (potential) legend in the making.

 

Jonathan Snowden: In the world of combat sports, words mostly breeze by like the wind. A lot of fighters have made a lot of money boasting about how big, bad and fearless they are. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, their handlers move mountains to ensure they rarely face anyone with a pulse.

McGregor, quite clearly at this point, is different. His braggadocio is backed by action, his willingness to face just about any man at any time proven by fate and circumstance.

When Dan Henderson was forced to drop out of UFC 151 a little more than a week before the fight, champion Jon Jones refused to step into the cage with Henderson’s former teammate, Chael Sonnen.

Henderson, at this point predominantly a striker hoping to land a Hail Mary right hand, presented an entirely different challenge than Sonnen, a wrestler who relied almost entirely on his powerful double-leg takedown. Jones, perhaps wisely, demurred, choosing to fight another day and forcing the UFC to cancel the event.

McGregor is a different kind of animal.

Faced with similar circumstances last year, McGregor gladly squared off with wrestling stalwart Chad Mendes instead of striking buzzsaw Jose Aldo. Here, again, he’s willing to trade Dos Anjos’ powerful pressure and top control for Diaz’s volume punching and dangerous bottom game.

Despite grumbling from some Internet critics, Diaz is no gimme fight. He’s a proven commodity, and the bout will be contested at a weight 15 pounds above the one McGregor was planning to weigh just 24 hours ago.

Do you think people may be underestimating the danger to McGregor here, Mike?

 

Chiappetta: If you want to be a stickler, you can reasonably say that Diaz does not present the same danger as Dos Anjos, who has transformed into a pretty fearsome fighting machine over the last few years.

With that said, most people complaining about this match are doing so based on the emotion of hearing the pairing rather than any sort of fight logic. Diaz is undeniably dangerous, as 11 of his 18 career wins are by submission, and he’s tapped out black belts before.

But McGregor has become an event fighter, so all of the X’s and O’s of fighting—the important stuff—get hidden behind his enormous personality, his headline-grabbing words and his aura. The fight becomes secondary. 

The point you make about Jones’ refusal to compete on short notice is a good example of why immediate backlash is often off the mark. The outrage against Jones was purely based on emotion. He had a very rational explanation: He and his team prepared for Henderson’s specific style and did not feel it was worth risking the title against a late replacement just to keep a date. That’s a very sensible approach and worthy of respect. 

Every athlete has the right to captain their own career as they see fit. Jones is on one end of the spectrum, but let’s be thankful of others like McGregor who steam forward with no need for brakes.

McGregor has said repeatedly that he does not train for any single man or style, and every time he’s been forced into situations that put that to the test, he raises his hand to volunteer. That alone is walking into danger.

 

Snowden: If I take off my “journalist” hat, and lord knows it doesn’t fit me particularly well, I’ll confess to cheering for McGregor in this fight. Not that I wish ill will toward Diaz—my fandom of that family’s exploits is long and legendary.

But I like the idea of the UFC making these kinds of small concessions to the rich history of combat sports.

In boxing, meandering through weight classes is common. At its worst, that’s a problem, an opportunity for fighters to duck certain rivals and ensure only the most favorable outcomes. But at its best, it gives us fights like “Sugar” Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Duran, epic battles between fighters who agree to see which champion is the better man.

That’s what a McGregor win offers. His success in several classes would allow UFC matchmakers to let their imaginations run wild, to make bouts that don’t necessarily fit within their current orthodoxies.

It’s a step toward fighters taking center stage. And that’s good, not just for McGregor but all who might dare follow him down this path.

 

Chiappetta: To bring it all back around to the question, Jonathan’s scenario proves why McGregor isn’t crazy at allnot by a long shot. All of this is due to him. The huge gates, the pay-per-view buyrates, the extra attention, it’s all self-created. It’s all because of McGregor. He has a plan, motivation and an appetite for risk.

Nothing great is achieved by following the mold. McGregor has broken out.

Some people claim they are chasing greatness, but he is doing it. Right in front of our eyes, day by day, minute by minute.

For the MMA world, that’s not cause for criticism. It’s cause for celebration.

 

Jonathan Snowden and Mike Chiappetta cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Nate Diaz Wins the Conor McGregor Sweepstakes, Welterweight Bout Set For UFC 196

(Incredibly gangster UFC 196 fan made trailer via ATE Channel)

When it was announced that Rafael Dos Anjos had gone down with a foot injury just 11 days prior to his lightweight title fight with Conor McGregor, the list of suitable replacement opponents for the Notorious one was quickly narrowed down to two guys: Donald Cerrone or Nate Diaz. Of course, Diaz being the perpetual cog in the UFC’s wheel, it seemed as if “Cowboy” would eventually be granted the matchup by virtue of pure convenience.

But wouldn’t you know it, it seems that Diaz had a slight change of heart, and has now agreed to face McGregor at UFC 196 in a five round main event.

If you’ll excuse us for a moment….

The post Nate Diaz Wins the Conor McGregor Sweepstakes, Welterweight Bout Set For UFC 196 appeared first on Cagepotato.


(Incredibly gangster UFC 196 fan made trailer via ATE Channel)

When it was announced that Rafael Dos Anjos had gone down with a foot injury just 11 days prior to his lightweight title fight with Conor McGregor, the list of suitable replacement opponents for the Notorious one was quickly narrowed down to two guys: Donald Cerrone or Nate Diaz. Of course, Diaz being the perpetual cog in the UFC’s wheel, it seemed as if “Cowboy” would eventually be granted the matchup by virtue of pure convenience.

But wouldn’t you know it, it seems that Diaz had a slight change of heart, and has now agreed to face McGregor at UFC 196 in a five round main event.

If you’ll excuse us for a moment….

The fight, which was first reported by Fox Sports and confirmed by Ariel Helwani shortly thereafter, will be a non-title fight contested at 170 pounds, marking the featherweight champion’s first trip up to the division. Diaz, meanwhile, hasn’t competed at welterweight since stringing together two stoppage victories over Rory Markham and Marcus Davis alongside a pair of decision losses to Dong Hyun Kim and Rory MacDonald between 2010 and 2011.

This…is an incredible, insane fight to put it simply, as well as the best possible scenario fans could have hoped for following the removal of Dos Anjos from the card. In McGregor vs. Diaz, you have two fighters who are, as Mike Goldberg would put it, virtually identical in a lot of ways. Both guys are tried-and-true finishers who compete at an absolutely insane pace and bring a diverse, punishing arsenal of strikes to the cage. It may not be the fight we were expecting, and it may be happening on two weeks notice, but McGregor vs. Diaz has “Fight of the Year” implications written all over it.

Not to mention, uhhh, this:

The amount of shit-talking that will take place during the fight alone is worth the price of the pay-per-view. Speaking of which, the UFC has scheduled a press conference for the two to face off for the first time, which will be broadcast at 4 p.m. EST today on UFC.com.

Everyone get your tickets; the circus is in town.

The post Nate Diaz Wins the Conor McGregor Sweepstakes, Welterweight Bout Set For UFC 196 appeared first on Cagepotato.