Tag: Caged In

Donald Cerrone: MMA’s Favorite Knockaround Guy Gets a Chance to Break Big

Donald Cerrone needs no introduction to MMA fans, but if things go right for him this weekend, he’ll no doubt soon find himself getting acquainted with a much larger audience.
There’s no way to overstate the scope of Cerrone’s opportu…

Donald Cerrone needs no introduction to MMA fans, but if things go right for him this weekend, he’ll no doubt soon find himself getting acquainted with a much larger audience.

There’s no way to overstate the scope of Cerrone’s opportunity on Saturday when he rematches Rafael Dos Anjos for the lightweight title at UFC on Fox 17. Not only could he win the first major championship of his career, but after nearly five years and 18 fights in the Octagon, Cerrone might also finally get his chance to break big.

I mean, really, really big.

The finer points are still being worked out, but early indications are that the winner of Dos Anjos vs. Cerrone could be next up for fledgling featherweight champ and budding superstar Conor McGregor. McGregor is calling his own shots these days, and his top priorities include jumping up in weight to attempt to become the first fighter to simultaneously hold two UFC titles in two separate weight classes.

It’s unknown if the fight company would allow him to do that without stripping him of the 145-pound belt, but UFC president Dana White has already confirmed he’ll book the Irishman an immediate title shot if he hops up to 155 pounds.

So Saturday’s Cerrone-Dos Anjos fight doubles as both UFC title match and big-money McGregor sweepstakes.

If Cerrone wins it—well—buckle up. It’s going to be a wild ride.

Any resulting matchup between Cerrone and McGregor would be forged in promotional heaven. It would feel right at home as the main event of a UFC mega-card in Ireland’s Croke Park in early 2016, or even as the headliner of the gala UFC 200 event scheduled for July.

Each man would bring his own signature brand of charisma and unique (but contrasting) gift of gab. Fact is, McGregor and Cerrone would be capable of putting on a “world tour” bigger than the one the UFC staged for McGregor and Jose Aldo earlier this year. It’s possible McGregor might even meet his marketing match.

“Come on with it, baby,” Cerrone said this week of McGregor’s plan to move up to 155 pounds (h/t SB Nation’s Submission Radio). “I love it. I love the idea.”

The fight would need just the slightest promotional push to catch fire. Imagine Cerrone getting the opportunity to bring the “Cowboy” lifestyle to a mass, mainstream audience:

Throughout his tenure in the UFC—and WEC before that—Cerrone has built himself into one of the sport’s most popular and dependable figures. He fought four times during 2014 and three more times this year before earning No. 1 contender status and being convinced to cool it until Dos Anjos could be ready.

He’s the UFC’s self-styled wild man, the daredevil who can’t sit still. He’s never cared much for titles, but he wants to fight (and earn) as often as possible. He’s put together a surprising 15-3 record in the UFC (26-6-1 overall). Along the way, he’s won nine of the company’s performance-based fight night bonuses and earned a legion of fans.

Before Saturday’s bout with Dos Anjos, however, Cerrone has only fought once in a UFC main event—when he defeated Jim Miller by second-round KO in July 2014. Twice he lost out on chances to win the WEC title but since coming to the Octagon, he’s been known more as a consummate workhorse than championship material.

That changed during his current run. Cerrone has reeled off eight wins in a row dating back to August 2013, when he lost to Dos Anjos via unanimous decision. In the UFC’s most competitive division, that’s a streak that simply can’t be ignored. According to MMAJunkie’s Mike Bohn, he needs just two more to pass Gleison Tibau for most wins all-time in the lightweight division.

More importantly, after what seems like a lifetime as one of the UFC’s favorite knockaround guys, Cerrone now gets the chance to win gold and perhaps earn the sort of payday that could set him up for life.

Finances have been a concern for the Cowboy in the past. In early 2014, he confessed to Examiner.com’s Ryan McKinnell that his play-hard lifestyle swallowed up most of his earnings, and he needed to keep up his breakneck fight pace just to have some money in the bank.

Certainly a title fight against McGregor would be the most lucrative fight of Cerrone’s—or anyone else’s—career. Of course, to even get that far, he’ll have to beat Dos Anjos.

The 31-year-old Brazilian has been the UFC’s most invisible champion since he took the belt from Anthony Pettis in March. Aside from one appearance at the UFC’s “Go Big” press conference in September—where he beefed with both Cerrone and McGregor—it’s hard to remember seeing him at all.

But that doesn’t mean he didn’t earn his way to the top.

Dos Anjos’ (13-5 UFC, 24-7 overall) high-pressure, grappling-based style has been tailor-made for defeating more flashy strikers of late. He’s riding a four-fight win streak that includes strong consecutive showings against Nate Diaz and Pettis. He was too much for Cerrone in their first meeting and is going off here as a bit more than a 2-1 favorite, according to Odds Shark.

But after nine months on the shelf, this will also be Dos Anjos’ first fight under the UFC’s new, stricter drug-testing policies. Cerrone told MMAFighting.com’s Shaun al-Shatti this week that he thinks that will have an impact.

“We have USADA testing now, so it’s going to be all different,” Cerrone said. “It’s a whole new animal. I don’t dwell on the last fight or anything, it’s a whole new thing. I’m going out there, I’m looking to finish him, man.”

Dos Anjos hasn’t been finished in a bout since he suffered a jaw injury against Clay Guida at UFC 117 in August 2010. If Cerrone manages to pull that off and take the title, it would set him up perfectly for a high-profile run opposite McGregor.

It’d be a heck of a way to introduce himself to the world.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Jose Aldo Won’t Get McGregor Rematch, but ‘Deserve’s’ Got Nothing to Do with It

Let’s talk for a moment about the word deserve.
The MMA industry is typically a fairly pragmatic place—one where the Oscar-winning sentiment of retired Wild West gunslinger Bill Munny rings eternally true. But let’s pause long enough …

Let’s talk for a moment about the word deserve.

The MMA industry is typically a fairly pragmatic place—one where the Oscar-winning sentiment of retired Wild West gunslinger Bill Munny rings eternally true. But let’s pause long enough from our coldblooded talk of pay-per-view buyrates and contract negotiations to make one slightly more human point.

UFC mixed martial artist Jose Aldo deserves better than this.

He deserves better, but he’s not going to get it.

Even as we all tumble headlong into the dizzy, high and endless possibilities of current UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor—that feels kind of like a shame.

Seeing McGregor capture the featherweight title via a 13-second knockout on Saturday at UFC 194 was shocking—but almost entirely so because that was Jose Aldo out there, collapsing to the canvas like somebody tipped over a stack of bricks.

Aldo was the only 145-pound champion the Octagon had ever known. We’d seen him do things in fights that seemed impossible. He hadn’t lost in 18 appearances, dating back to 2005, and there he was, getting KOed with laughable ease by his more marketable, upstart challenger.

Four days after UFC 194, it appears he’s still hurting.

“It still is too hard to digest,” Aldo told Brazilian media outlet Combate on Monday (translation via MMA Fighting.com’s Guilherme Cruz). “We trained hard, did everything right, and the result wasn’t positive. But it’s part [of MMA]. It’s a sport and we have to accept [it].”

In the immediate wake of the loss, a few additional indignities were piled at Aldo’s feet. Cries of a fix rang out from some corners, with people implying that the greatest 145-pound MMA fighter in history had taken a dive.

For some reason, the UFC released the raw feed from Aldo’s locker room camera. The footage showed the devastated former champion returning to his dressing area after the defeat and slumping to the floor at the edge of the workout mats. Coaches and teammates tried in vain to console him. By Tuesday night, the video had been removed from YouTube.

Brazilian media even lobbed a few shots. As Bleacher Report’s Tom Sunderland noted:

McGregor took the UFC’s featherweight championship on Saturday after disposing of Aldo in record time for a title fight. The result led Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo to proclaim the “golden years” of Brazilian mixed martial arts are over, while newspaper O Globo called the loss “a stain on the career” of Aldo (h/t Irish Independent’s Declan Whooley).

Perhaps, most startling of all was how quickly the UFC moved the narrative away from an immediate rematch. With No. 2 featherweight Frankie Edgar waiting in the wings and McGregor—guaranteed a potentially more lucrative title shot if he decides to move up to lightweight—it felt as though the fight company flipped the page on Aldo at breakneck speed.

Color commentator Joe Rogan expressed disdain for the idea of an Aldo-McGregor rematch even before the UFC 194 PPV went off the air and again on Monday during his podcast. When UFC.com’s Megan Olivi caught up with company president Dana White backstage after the fight, the boss didn’t even consider the idea of giving Aldo a second crack at McGregor.

“It depends on what happens,” White said. “Obviously, if [Conor] vacated and went to [lightweight] we’d probably do Frankie Edgar vs. Jose for the [featherweight] title. If not, then we do Frankie Edgar [vs. McGregor], and Jose Aldo would fight somebody else.”

We understand why all of this is happening. McGregor is a financial and cultural juggernaut, and Edgar is no less worthy of taking a shot at him than anyone else. If McGregor does indeed move up to 155-pounds, it would create possibilities too enticing for the world’s largest MMA promoter to ignore.

Besides, if Aldo’s consolation prize turns out to be a bout against Edgar for a newly vacant 145-pound title—well, let’s just say things could be worse for him.

But we should also note that after carrying the featherweight division on his back for its entire UFC lifespan up to this point, denying Aldo an immediate rematch against McGregor feels a bit unseemly.

It also constitutes the UFC bucking its own trend on how it treats dominant champions after they lose.

It’s tough to imagine another titlist who had been so good for so long suddenly being cast as an afterthought. In fact, the exact opposite has mostly been true. In recent years, nearly every long-standing champion to suffer a loss has been promptly granted a chance to reclaim the gold.

Anderson Silva got a rematch at UFC 168 after getting knocked cold by Chris Weidman at UFC 162.

Ronda Rousey will almost certainly get the same after the domination she experienced from Holly Holm at UFC 193.

Former 2-time UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez is on the verge of another bout against current UFC Heavyweight Champion Fabricio Werdum after Velasquez showed up woefully ill-prepared to fight at Mexico City, Mexico’s high altitude at UFC 188.

Even Jon Jones—stripped of his heavyweight title just eight months ago after he was charged with felony hit-and-run—will get the opportunity to take the belt back from Daniel Cormier in his return fight.

So, why not Aldo?

The short answer seems to be that he’s simply being swallowed-up in the tidal wave of McGregor mania.

The longer, more complicated answer might be that Aldo has never been an easy champion for the UFC.

He’s long been an advocate of more equitable fighter pay and spoke out recently in favor of UFC athletes forming a union. He was bitingly critical of the fight company’s new exclusive apparel deal with Reebok and at first balked at the idea of an intravenous rehydration ban amid the UFC’s strictest health and safety rules.

It’s easy to imagine why, having ditched a champion who refused to toe the company line and simultaneously gaining a firebrand who promises to make them a lot of money, UFC brass might not be in a hurry to give Aldo a do-over against McGregor.

Why take the chance that he might win?

In some ways, it’s too bad we may never get the opportunity to see if UFC 194 represented a true changing of the guard at featherweight or just a lucky punch. But popular opinion seems to be that the UFC suddenly has the champion it wants in McGregor and isn’t going to risk losing him—even if he’s taking it to the woodshed in his own contract negotiation.

Maybe it’s just not financially appealing enough for the UFC to give Aldo a second shot at McGregor. Maybe it would be too much of a raw deal for Edgar. Maybe McGregor’s moving up to take a shot at the lightweight crown is something the organization simply can’t pass up.

But all that has very little to do with Aldo himself.

He’s been a great champion for this sport, so it’s only fitting that we pause to note that circumstances have conspired against him.

Does he deserve a rematch? Yes, absolutely, but in the end he committed the capital crime of losing his title to a man the UFC thinks will be its next great superstar. There’s no going back on that. It would just be too inconvenient to all the people who stand to profit.

And deserving a rematch has nothing to do with that.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Conor McGregor’s Next Move Should Depend on UFC’s Other Upcoming Title Fight

Conor McGregor writes his own ticket.
On the heels of his stunning 13-second knockout of Jose Aldo Saturday at UFC 194, that appears true both inside the Octagon and in life. For the foreseeable future, the 27-year-old Irishman will enjoy the rarest of…

Conor McGregor writes his own ticket.

On the heels of his stunning 13-second knockout of Jose Aldo Saturday at UFC 194, that appears true both inside the Octagon and in life. For the foreseeable future, the 27-year-old Irishman will enjoy the rarest of political capital in combat sports as the promotional juggernaut who is also just as good as he claims to be.

After watching McGregor unceremoniously dethrone the greatest featherweight of all time with nothing more than a flick of his powerful left hand over the weekend, the most obvious—and most interesting—question becomes: What’s next?

Short answer: Whatever he wants.

Longer answer: No matter what he decides, it’s going to be complicated.

Lightweight? Featherweight? A rematch? A fresh challenge? A lot of different people are saying a lot of different things.

Because the UFC’s live-event schedule never stops for a breath, the fight company will stage a very serendipitously timed lightweight title fight between fledgling champion Rafael dos Anjos and well-liked challenger Donald Cerrone on December 19. It will air—as UFC President Dana White loves to shout at us—live and free on the Fox Network.

Dos Anjos vs. Cerrone always shaped up as a fun, marketable scrap in the UFC’s most competitive weight class. Now, it turns out it’s going to be vitally important, too. All the smartest and most lucrative options for McGregor’s next step may well depend on who wins.

If we’ve learned anything about McGregor during nearly three years in the Octagon, it’s that he doesn’t lack for goals. In the immediate aftermath of his historic win over Aldo, he acknowledged to MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani that there will be even more suitors now vying for his attention than before.

“There’s options; and I make the decision on this,” McGregor said, per Bleacher Report’s Stuart Newman. ”I feel I’ve earned the right to make decisions on this, so I’ll see what way it forms. I’ll listen to all angles and then I’ll make a decision.”

Aldo is screaming for a rematch. Consensus No. 1 featherweight contender Frankie Edgar badly wants a piece of him. Former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis has offered to welcome him to 155-pounds. White told Fox Sports late Saturday that he’ll book McGregor an immediate championship fight if he moves up.

If Cerrone manages to unseat Dos Anjos, then a lightweight title shot for McGregor absolutely makes sense. A bout between the UFC’s likable “Cowboy” and its newly anointed top star would be the kind of thing it could promote at Ireland’s enormous Croke Park in early 2016.

That fight sells itself, and the matchup of styles presents a potentially winnable contest for McGregor. (Ed. Note: OK, fine, after watching him thump Aldo so easily, maybe they’re all winnable for McGregor at this point.)

But if Dos Anjos retains his title next weekend? Maybe not so much.

The 31-year-old Brazilian has been 155-pound champ for all of nine months and is so far proving to be one of the UFC’s most anonymous titlists. He’s been on the shelf since taking the gold from Pettis at UFC 185 and hasn’t had much luck at all connecting with fans.

In fact, aside from appearing at the UFC’s “Go Big” press conference in September, he’s been almost completely invisible during his reign.

A fight between McGregor and Dos Anjos might sell because McGregor can apparently sell any fight single-handedly, but it wouldn’t become a stadium-level phenomenon like a matchup with Cerrone would. It also potentially shapes up as a much different and arguably more difficult stylistic challenge for McGregor.

Dos Anjos’ grappling-based attack has proved very effective at grinding out decision victories over flashy strikers. He did it to Pettis in May and did it to Nate Diaz last December. If he manages to pull off the same trick against Cerrone next weekend, then putting McGregor into an immediate 155-pound title shot might start to seem fairly unappetizing.

Do UFC matchmakers really want to take the chance that their new golden goose goes out there and gets held on his back for five rounds by Dos Anjos? A tepid unanimous-decision loss would be an uninspiring way to begin The McGregor Era.

If McGregor immediately heads to lightweight, it also raises significant questions about what would happen to the featherweight division he just conquered. McGregor has been adamant that he would keep the 145-pound title and become a fighting champion in two weight classes.

But historically, the UFC has been steadfast in demanding that champions who jump weight vacate their belts. Would they make a special consideration for McGregor? Maybe, but White told Fox Sports that McGregor’s coach said if the fighter goes up to 155-pounds, he’s not coming back down.

“[Coach] John Kavanagh said in the Octagon [McGregor] will never make 145 again,” White said, via MMAJunkie.com’s Mike Bohn. “He said, ‘I don’t want him making that weight again; it’s not good for him.”

If that’s true, then it appears McGregor is about to leave featherweight in the lurch.

What would the UFC do to find a home for the suddenly vacant title? Set up a rematch between Edgar and Aldo? Could any self-respecting version of Aldo lose to McGregor in such an embarrassing, legend-shattering way and really just stay at 145-pounds to fight for the title he just lost? Doubt it.

If Aldo followed McGregor to lightweight seeking a rematch—a move he too has talked about for years—the featherweight class might immediately go from intensely interesting to feeling pretty shallow.

Book a fight for the homeless title between Edgar and Max Holloway? Or Edgar vs. Ricardo Lamas? Neither of those options exactly jump off the page, do they?

No, if Dos Anjos beats Cerrone next weekend, the best play for McGregor is to stay home at 145-pounds. He’d do big business, either in a rematch with Aldo or a bout against Edgar. Heck, maybe both.

If McGregor could manage one or two more fights at featherweight—Kavanagh‘s concerns notwithstanding, obviously—perhaps the Dos Anjos problem would take care of itself. Champions at lightweight sometimes don’t stay champion for long, after all.

None of this is to say anything of McGregor’s UFC contract. Leading up to the Aldo fight, he seemed poised to ask the UFC to break the bank on a new deal. Clearly, he didn’t do anything to undermine his bargaining power in the fight. After it, he told Helwani that he and the organization have “sorted a deal already. It is a very good one.”

If that’s true, then perhaps the McGregor show can keep rolling without delay.

His next move will be an important one. No matter what he decides, we’ve all learned the hard way that when he says he’s going to do something, we should all respect his vision.

Those visions just keep coming true.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Frankie Edgar: Was His KO of Chad Mendes as Good as Gold? Only Time Will Tell

Frankie Edgar sure knows how to fill out a job application.
For Edgar, the mission Friday at The Ultimate Fighter Season 22 Finale wasn’t merely to beat Chad Mendes, but to do it impressively enough to assert his position as the next No. 1 c…

Frankie Edgar sure knows how to fill out a job application.

For Edgar, the mission Friday at The Ultimate Fighter Season 22 Finale wasn’t merely to beat Chad Mendes, but to do it impressively enough to assert his position as the next No. 1 contender in the featherweight division.

In the wake of a first-round knockout that was better than even Edgar’s staunchest supports could have reasonably imagined? Mission accomplished—at least for the few fleeting hours between the TUF 22 Finale and the 145-pound title bout headlining Saturday night’s UFC 194 pay-per-view.

“Frankie really, really solidified himself tonight as the guy,” UFC President Dana White said at the post-fight press conference, according to MMAJunkie.com’s Mike Bohn. “Nobody can deny Frankie anymore. He looked amazing tonight, and he’ll get whatever he wants.”

The victory gave the 34-year-old New Jersey native five straight wins since July 2013. It put a lot of distance between Edgar and his loss to champion Jose Aldo at UFC 156. With three stoppage victories during that stretch, it also further shattered his reputation as a plucky, undersized scrapper who typically wins by razor-close decision.

“Everybody said [Mendes] had the power and I’m the volume guy,” Edgar told UFC play-by-play announcer Jon Anik during his post-fight interview in the cage. “This dude’s got a little pop, too.”

Indeed, with Edgar out here knocking people cold, it’s hard to build a case that he shouldn’t be next after Aldo and Conor McGregor settle their long-running blood feud Saturday.

Yet so much could still happen before the start of the workweek on Monday that it’s impossible to feel confident about Edgar’s chances. Any number of potential outcomes could remand him back to the waiting list.

If McGregor unseats Aldo as featherweight champ, it’s highly likely the UFC will hold its big-money grudge match over for a second installment. After nearly a year of buildup and a monster PPV buyrate expected this weekend, it would take just the slightest nudge for a rematch—or even a trilogy, depending on how things go—to seem appetizing.

Even a close fight, regardless of who wins, might be enough for the rest of the 145-pound division to expect delays. A controversial stoppage, a hinky decision or the emergence of the proper post-fight injury narrative could also do the trick.

According to Damon Martin of Fox Sports, the fight company is already reportedly eyeing a stadium show in Ireland during the first half of 2016. Unless things change dramatically between then and now, Aldo obviously appears the best opponent for McGregor for that kind of spectacle.

And none of that even takes into account what Aldo and McGregor might be planning on their own.

Both guys have toyed with the idea of moving to lightweight. McGregor already has rivalries brewing with both 155-pound champion Rafael dos Anjos and No. 1 contender Donald Cerrone. That tandem will meet for lightweight gold on December 19, and the Irishman could be positioned as a proper next opponent for the winner (or loser) with a small amount of finagling.

Unless any of the above plot twists also include the forfeiture of the featherweight crown, they would probably force Edgar to take another fight before getting his chance at the title.

Though he would obviously be first up as a substitute after any injury, it would still amount to a postponement that a veteran like Edgar could ill afford.

The one thing we know for sure is that he more than held up his end of the bargain this weekend.

He came into this bout as the slight favorite, but conventional wisdom said his game plan would be to avoid Mendes’ power strikes while using his speed and cardio to wear him down over the course of 25 minutes.

In the early going, Edgar accepted some hard low kicks and a couple of notable punches from Mendes. He stuffed an early takedown attempt by Edgar, and the confines of the UFC’s smaller Octagon also seemed to favor Mendes.

Yet once Edgar began to land his crisp striking combinations, it was clear his speed advantage and diverse boxing attack were going to be trouble.

The end came in just two minutes, 28 seconds, after Edgar stunned Mendes with a right hand and followed it up with a whipping left hook. The second punch landed squarely on the button, and Mendes slumped stiffly to his back on the canvas.

The reaction of Anik and broadcast partner Brian Stann summed up the moment perfectly, as captured in a photo by MMAFighting.com’s Esther Lin:

Mendes may have been only momentarily out. He was already rolling to his feet when referee John McCarthy stepped in to stop the fight. Still, it was enough. Mendes was clearly badly hurt, and his protest lasted just a few seconds before he was smiling and congratulating Edgar in the middle of the cage.

It was Edgar’s first opening-round stoppage since he TKOed Mark Bocek in his second UFC fight way back at UFC 73 in July 2007.

The victory was impressive and impeccably timed. In short, it was exactly what Edgar needed at exactly the right time.

If his next fight isn’t for the title, it’s tough to imagine an opponent who wouldn’t feel like a letdown—though fourth-ranked featherweight Ricardo Lamas just defeated Diego Sanchez on November 21 and No. 5 Max Holloway fights Jeremy Stephens at UFC 194.

Either one could be a potential foe for Edgar, who has been around the block long enough not to bet the house on his No. 1 contender status until his next bout agreement is signed.

“Nothing’s in stone,” Edgar said at the post-fight presser, per Sherdog.com’s Tristen Critchfield. “I know this business. [White] seemed pretty happy, and I walked out of there even happier, so I think we’re [headed] in the right direction.”

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Conor McGregor vs. Jose Aldo and the Power of a Great Beef in MMA

Before things get any crazier, pause for a moment to consider what Conor McGregor has already accomplished.
As McGregor takes the cage on Saturday to fight Jose Aldo for the featherweight title at UFC 194, it’s worth remembering that seven years …

Before things get any crazier, pause for a moment to consider what Conor McGregor has already accomplished.

As McGregor takes the cage on Saturday to fight Jose Aldo for the featherweight title at UFC 194, it’s worth remembering that seven years ago he was working as a plumber, changing pipes and unclogging toilets at home in Dublin.

The rise, you might say, has been meteoric. Two-and-a-half years and six fights into his UFC career, he stands on the brink of history.

McGregor will find himself across the cage from the greatest 145-pound MMA fighter of all time this weekend with the chance to validate the self-promotional house of cards he’s built himself since arriving on the big stage.

One of the UFC’s largest pay-per-view audiences of the year is expected to tune in to see if he can do it.

He’ll likely net a seven-figure payday from the event and already has potential big-money fights lined up for later in two different weight classes.

Maybe—just maybe—he’ll leave Las Vegas with the actual, bona fide UFC title around his waist, too.

His fight against Aldo will cap a week during which the UFC puts on three events on three consecutive nights. There will be around 30 fights, all leading up to their long-awaited clash.

It’s almost enough to make you think McGregor has already won.

All of this is because of him, after all.

All because of McGregor and his mouth.

Of course, he couldn’t have done it without Aldo (7-0 UFC, 25-1 overall). The Brazilian’s spotless six-year, 10-fight reign over the featherweight division dating back to the old WEC days made him the perfect target. His ice-cold demeanor and assassin’s glare made him the perfect foil.

But, really, McGregor gets the credit here. He’s almost single-handedly launched their beef into the annals of the UFC’s all-time greats. We haven’t even seen the fight yet and it already belongs right up there with Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen and Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock.

McGregor’s unorthodox, left-handed striking style has rocketed him to 6-0 in the Octagon (18-2 overall), but it was his work on the microphone that made him a revelation.

From the start, the Irishman seemed to understand innately what Sonnen took nearly a decade in professional fighting to figure out: Being one of the best trash-talkers in the world trumps almost everything else.

McGregor has blathered and fumed and by turns waxed philosophical throughout his short run in the UFC. From the beginning, it appeared as though his bosses knew he was going to be something special.

Fans seemed to know it, too, turning out in droves both in his native Ireland and abroad to establish him as one of the biggest stars in the sport in record time. The work he’s done comes laced with echoes of Sonnen—who spun the same variety of verbal magic en route to three UFC title shots before multiple drug-test failures ended his career.

So Sonnen knows from whence he speaks. Now an analyst for ESPN, he was in Las Vegas this week for the UFC 194 press conference. He told MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani that McGregor vs. Aldo reminded of him of the work he did opposite Silva before their two meetings at UFCs 117 and 148.

Sonnen also didn’t issue any rave reviews for the job Aldo has done to help:

It’s a one-man show. I’m watching Conor. We’re all tuning in for Conor. … It’s the McGregor Show, [but] it shouldn’t have to be that way. … He’s got a dance partner that signed a contract to do a certain job, and this is part of it. If I was going to ask a question today, that would have been my question to Jose Aldo. I would have said, “Jose, what are you doing here? Why did you show up today?”

It’s true that Aldo has mostly served as McGregor’s straight man during the lead-up to UFC 194, albeit a stunningly dangerous one. The longtime champion seethed his way through the “world tour” the UFC sent the two athletes on during the run-up to their originally scheduled meeting in July.

McGregor seemed to be having the time of his life on that ambitious press junket. Aldo appeared to be plotting his murder.

The spectacle climaxed at a press conference in Dublin, where scores of Irishmen—some of them already pretty far into their cups—turned out to call Aldo all sorts of names. McGregor ate it up, and near the end of the proceedings, he crafted what will no doubt be the iconic moment of this epic rivalry: He jumped over the podium and grabbed Aldo’s championship belt from his side of the dais.

By comparison, the lead-up to UFC 194 has been quite staid. To its credit—perhaps the first time in its history where it has erred on the side of subtlety—the UFC realized it couldn’t just call a do-over on all of McGregor’s antics.

That didn’t stop him from totally hijacking the organization’s “Go Big” press conference in mid-September. McGregor effectively took over that event, blasting Aldo, lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos and 155-pound No. 1 contender Donald Cerrone.

It was a smart play by McGregor, but maybe also the first sign that he was growing beyond the UFC’s control. In the wake of that appearance, he’s made grandiose statements about the size of his next fight contract and recently took to his Instagram to post, “I am not a company man. I am the company.”

Now comes Aldo, who—to this juncture—appears to be the only person with any hope of actually slowing the McGregor hype train.

He’s approached this feud with equal parts bemusement and frustration. As Sonnen noted, he’s been mostly tightlipped. He pulled out of their first intended meeting at UFC 189 with a rib injury, which McGregor and his supporters called cowardice, but he’s mostly radiated quiet confidence.

Not even MMA’s best technical analysts—like Bleacher Report’s Patrick Wyman and Fightland’s Jack Slack—seem confident in the way this fight will go.

If Aldo manages to be the first to slay McGregor on the big stage, it may do nothing besides serve as a reminder of where the posturing ends and the actual skills begin.

But it won’t be the end of McGregor. If anything, Sonnen’s career stands as a testament to that. When you can talk a good game, matchmakers have a tendency to keep coming back for more.

That’s where McGregor’s true greatness lies. No matter what happens to him against Aldo, he’s fashioned himself into a promotional juggernaut. The big fights won’t stop coming for him, even if it turns out he’s not up to backing up the beef.

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Frankie Edgar vs. Chad Mendes Could Be Epic, but Will It Be Lost in the Shuffle?

The embarrassment of riches that is the UFC 194 fight week only truly reveals itself when you consider Friday night’s main event between Frankie Edgar and Chad Mendes.
A marquee attraction any other week of the year, Edgar vs. Mendes has the pote…

The embarrassment of riches that is the UFC 194 fight week only truly reveals itself when you consider Friday night’s main event between Frankie Edgar and Chad Mendes.

A marquee attraction any other week of the year, Edgar vs. Mendes has the potential to be one of the best fights of 2015 at any weight class when it goes down at The Ultimate Fighter season 22 live finale. Yet this week, it barely registers.

So all consuming is the prospect of seeing Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor finally settle their rivalry Saturday on pay-per-view, nearly everything else happening during the UFC’s three-night tripleheader is being relegated to second-fiddle status.

Or in the case of Edgar and Mendes, third or fourth fiddle—behind a middleweight title fight and a potential 185-pound title eliminator we’ve also been waiting on for months.

It’s going to be a crowded week of MMA action, and that could cut any number of ways for the two near-peerless featherweight veterans.

It’s possible that Edgar and Mendes hitching their wagon to the spectacle of Aldo-McGregor will be good for them. It might actually garner them more eyeballs, more attention and a greater piece of the zeitgeist than they may have gotten as a standalone main event on Fox Sports 1.

Or they might get totally lost in the shuffle.

After all, nothing is assured for either guy here. We suspect this bout could turn out to be a de facto No. 1 contender fight at 145 pounds. It’s possible the winner could be next up for whoever leaves UFC 194 as the featherweight champ.

Perhaps the Edgar-Mendes victor will get a nice rub. Perhaps he’ll wind up cageside on Saturday night, his mug on the big screen in the arena for a knowing smile and a fist pose, the words, “No. 1 contender” under his name. Maybe the powers that be will even let him in the cage to challenge the Aldo-McGregor winner.

But probably not.

Truth is, the man who emerges victorious from Aldo vs. McGregor will have a lot of other options—many of them arguably more intriguing than fighting either Edgar or Mendes.

UFC president Dana White stated on the NRL Footy Show (h/t Fox Sports) that the UFC is already eyeing a stadium show in Ireland during the first half of 2016. That could mean that a rematch will be in the works between the Brazilian champion and Irish interim champ no matter what happens this weekend. It would also mean that Edgar and Mendes will need to fight again before either gets a shot at the gold.

Both Aldo and McGregor have additionally talked about bolting for lightweight. McGregor already has built-in feuds waiting for him with lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos and current No. 1 contender Donald Cerrone.

Dos Anjos and Cerrone will fight for the 155-pound title on Dec. 19. The winner likely fancies himself a date with the Notorious One, who has long said the lightweight division is in his plans.

“In my mind, I’m thinking, I’m going to unify the belts,” McGregor said at a recent media lunch, per MMA Fighting.com’s Dave Doyle. “I’m going to destroy the [featherweight] division, and then I’m going to take the lightweight division as well. That’s where I’m headed right now.”

Aldo too might see greener pastures at a higher weight class. He was previously linked to a fight with Anthony Pettis, back when Pettis was champion. Having already defeated both Edgar and Mendes (twice), if Aldo gets past McGregor, it won’t be difficult to make the case he’s accomplished all he can at featherweight.

Recent reports also suggest that Aldo may well feel he’s accomplished all he can period. Aldo’s training partner, Andy Souwer, told MMAPlus TV (h/t MMAFighting.com) that the only featherweight champion the Octagon has ever known might be eyeing retirement.

If the Edgar-Mendes winner ends up getting passed over by any of the above scenarios, it’ll be a bitter pill to swallow. This fight shapes up as a must-win for two great athletes, even with the somewhat nebulous stakes.

Mendes comes in just 1-2 in his last three. Granted, his losses occurred in a fight-of-the-year candidate brawl against Aldo at UFC 179 in October 2014 and a short-notice tussle with McGregor at UFC 189, but he can’t afford to drop another.

A defeat at the hands of Edgar would put Mendes at 1-3 dating back to the end of 2013. It could conceivably lock him out of the title picture until all other contenders have gotten their shots. That’s not a place the California native particularly wants to be at 30 years old and 20 fights into his professional career.

Likewise, Edgar may not have time to dig himself out of the hole of another loss. He’s 34 years old and has won four fights in a row at 145 pounds since an 0-3 stretch from February 2012 to February 2013, but time is clearly not on his side.

He rushed to cageside following McGregor’s victory over Mendes at UFC 189, trying to cut the line between McGregor and Aldo. He was duly rebuffed and now has been remanded back to this contender fight against Mendes.

Edgar is currently going off as a slight favorite, according to Odds Shark, and his speed and overall MMA game may give him the edge. But Mendes’ punching power and sheer physical strength may be the wild card in this fight. If Edgar can’t seamlessly transition between his pesky striking combinations and his lightning-quick takedowns, Mendes could potentially make it a long (or frightfully short) night for him.

In any case, the two won’t just be fighting each other. They’ll be fighting for a piece of the spotlight during a week that will also include Aldo vs. McGregor as the crown jewel of the UFC’s 2015 PPV slate.

Young stars like Paige VanZant and Sage Northcutt will be in action the night before, and the night after, middleweight champion Chris Weidman puts his title on the line against Luke Rockhold in the UFC 194 co-main event.

This is to say nothing of the slightly lower profile but surefire crowd-pleasers like Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Yoel Romero, Demian Maia vs. Gunnar Nelson, Edson Barboza vs. Tony Ferguson, Joe Lauzon vs. Evan Dunham or Jim Miller vs. Michael Chiesa.

There will be a lot of action competing for our attention. A bout like Edgar vs. Mendes has a chance to steal the show when it goes down at the exact midpoint of the UFC’s 72-hour rock ‘n’ roll festival.

Or it could be forgotten by the time—to quote UFC commentator Mike Goldberg—it is all over.

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