Tag: Conor McGregor vs Floyd mayweather

Quote: Conor McGregor Could Be Better Than Tony Ferguson On The Ground

With the MMA world awaiting UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor’s UFC return, the general consensus is that the polarizing Irishman will face interim champion Tony Ferguson when he does set foot back in the cage. The initial thought was that the UFC would book McGregor’s foregone conclusion of a trilogy bout with Nate Diaz, but […]

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With the MMA world awaiting UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor’s UFC return, the general consensus is that the polarizing Irishman will face interim champion Tony Ferguson when he does set foot back in the cage.

The initial thought was that the UFC would book McGregor’s foregone conclusion of a trilogy bout with Nate Diaz, but fan interest in terms of a meritocracy standpoint – at least in the minds of hardcore MMA fans – has seemingly shifted that focus to a bout with “El Cucuy.”

With much of the MMA world screaming for McGregor to finally defend one of his titles, even ‘The Notorious’ himself has admitted it’s time to “legitimize the rankings,” which suggests a bout with Ferguson is next up for the UFC’s biggest superstar. So with that match seemingly on the horizon, discussion about the fight’s outcome is beginning to surface in the fight world.

That was the case when McGregor’s training partner and Brazilian jiu-jitsu phenom Dillon Danis met up with Submission Radio (via Bloody Elbow) recently, where the outspoken grappler revealed his thoughts that McGregor would match or even surpass Ferguson on the ground despite the interim champion’s stellar reputation for finishing fights by submission:

“I don’t know what people judge that of off. I don’t know why they would say he has a superior advantage on the ground or stuff like that. People don’t even know what Conor’s Jiu Jitsu is like.

“So, with me training with Conor so much in his Jiu Jitsu, I feel like he’ll be fine on the ground or even better (than Ferguson).”

That may be a tough sell, but many are giving McGregor a clear edge on the feet – and justifiably so – as Ferguson has shown a penchant for sticking his chin high up in the air during his fights. With a solid chin, he takes a shot to land one or two of his own, but Danis said that’s path to certain demise against McGregor:

“I think Conor’s going to pick him apart on the feet, most likely knock him out early or he can probably do whatever he wants with him. Tony’s very sloppy. If you watch his fights, he gets hit a lot, and when you get hit against Conor you go out.”

As for whether or not the fight will happen, Danis believes it will, as Ferguson’s recent callout online has McGregor wanting to shut his mouth:

“I would think Tony Ferguson next because he won and Conor is gonna defend the belt and stuff like that. And me knowing Conor, Tony Ferguson is talking a lot of shit and I know Conor is gonna wanna shut him up. So I can see that happening.”

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Six Disturbing Reasons No One Seems To Care About UFC 217

Back when Georges St-Pierre was welterweight champion of the world, he was a proven box office and pay-per-view draw, especially when it came to the Canadian MMA market. But heading into his middleweight title bout versus Michael Bisping in the main event of November 4’s UFC 217 after four years of semi-retirement, it has begun to […]

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Back when Georges St-Pierre was welterweight champion of the world, he was a proven box office and pay-per-view draw, especially when it came to the Canadian MMA market.

But heading into his middleweight title bout versus Michael Bisping in the main event of November 4’s UFC 217 after four years of semi-retirement, it has begun to appear he might not be the draw he once was, the star new owners Endeavor (formerly WME-IMG) expect (or more so, need) him to be.

That and many more reasons behind it seem to be holding back UFC 217, which, with three high-level title fights, was thought to be quite possibly the UFC’s finest major offering of the year in terms of quality fights. Based on ticket sales and overall buzz in the MMA world, that just isn’t the case, and it’s coming at a time when the UFC needs a big PPV hit most.

Take a look at the six concerning reasons no one seems to care about UFC 217:

Kyle Terada – USA TODAY Sports

6. A Middleweight Title Fight No One Asked For

Fans certainly didn’t ask for St-Pierre to return at middleweight while getting an immediate title fight in doing so.

It goes without saying that Bisping’s fellow middleweights aren’t fans of the fight either. There were definitely better and more just options for the champion’s next fight, namely Yoel Romero and Ronaldo Souza, but new interim champ Robert Whittaker knocked them both off in April and July, respectively, only to suffer a serious knee injury while defeating Romero.

That worked out quite well for “The Count.” Bisping has taken it easy since winning the belt, defending the strap once against then No. 14-ranked Dan Henderson.

It may seem to fans that Bisping is hijacking the division with needless title defenses while managing to dodge the dangerous contenders in Whittaker, Romero, Souza, Rockhold, and Weidman.

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Paulie Malignaggi Says He’ll Fight Conor McGregor & Artem Lobov In The Same Night

Although it’s thought that UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor will finally defend his UFC title in his anticipated return, retired boxing champ Paulie Malignaggi isn’t letting go of his oft-discussed potential boxing match versus “The Notorious.” The match-up had a ton of heat heading into McGregor’s boxing ‘money fight’ this summer, as the controversy over a now-infamous […]

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Although it’s thought that UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor will finally defend his UFC title in his anticipated return, retired boxing champ Paulie Malignaggi isn’t letting go of his oft-discussed potential boxing match versus “The Notorious.”

The match-up had a ton of heat heading into McGregor’s boxing ‘money fight’ this summer, as the controversy over a now-infamous sparring session where the UFC megastar supposedly dropped Malignaggi dominated MMA headlines mid-August. It understandably lead to talk of a potential boxing match with Malignaggi, but the momentum all but went away when McGregor was finished by Mayweather.

Tony Ferguson won the interim UFC lightweight title at UFC 216, and it became obvious McGregor simply had to compete in the Octagon, even as Malignaggi recently claimed his manager Al Heymon was in talks to book his coveted bout with McGregor. McGregor’s team has even seemed to have begun to tease a title unification bout with Ferguson, and the always-there trilogy bout with Nate Diaz is well, just that.

However, Malignaggi won’t let it go.

The retired boxer tried to pull out all the stops on Twitter this week in response to a Bloody Elbow article where McGregor’s longtime training partner Artem Lobov, who lost to Andre Fili at last weekend’s UFC Gdansk, was considering a move to boxing and was willing to fight Malignaggi.

In an effort to fight the famed Irishman, Malignaggi offered to fight both he and Lobov on the same night:

It may seem that it’s a last-ditch effort at getting a big fight no one really wants to watch, and Malignaggi continued to justify the outlandish prospect when someone asked him if he would fight McGregor and Lobov at the same time, referring back to the one-night tournaments of the early UFC where fighters would fight multiple times in a night:

There’s probably not an athletic commission that would sanction such a pair of match-ups on the same night, but hey, Malignaggi might as well pull out all the stops for one last push for a fight he’s not going to get.

For MMA’s sake, let’s hope he doesn’t, at least.

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Paulie Malignaggi’s Team Reaches Out To UFC For Conor McGregor Fight

We are almost two months removed from the superfight between UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor and boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas, Nevada at the T-Mobile arena. Former boxing champion Paulie Malignaggi is still calling out the UFC champion through social media. The bad blood between Malignaggi and McGregor has been well documented. […]

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We are almost two months removed from the superfight between UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor and boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas, Nevada at the T-Mobile arena.

Former boxing champion Paulie Malignaggi is still calling out the UFC champion through social media. The bad blood between Malignaggi and McGregor has been well documented. Malignaggi was brought in as a sparring partner to help McGregor prepare for Mayweather.

As a result of this, Malignaggi was upset with some of the images and videos of posted on McGregor’s social media accounts from their sparring sessions in which ‘Magic Man’ felt he was depicted in a bad light due to the fact that one of the pictures showed McGregor standing over him on the canvas. Since then, the former boxing champion has been campaigning for a grudge match

This past Friday, Malignaggi noted on social media that his adviser, Al Haymon, had reached out to UFC president Dana White to try and begin formal negotiations for the bout.

McGregor ultimately lost to Mayweather in the tenth round by TKO after being hit by a series of punches against the ropes. Although he lost the fight, the UFC champion surpassed many expectations in his boxing debut.

It appears that McGregor will not be fighting in a boxing ring for his next bout, but instead, he will end up fighting newly-crowned UFC interim champ Tony Ferguson in a title unification bout.

UFC officials have yet to make the bout official, but the expectation is that McGregor and Ferguson to square off in late-December or the new year.

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Six Reasons Mayweather vs. McGregor Ruined An Entire Year Of MMA

What will amount to by far the biggest combat sports event of the year has also cast a long and dark shadow over mixed martial arts (MMA) ever since boxing legend Floyd Mayweather and UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor boxed for ten rounds in August. Now several months removed from that epic showdown, it’s clear […]

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What will amount to by far the biggest combat sports event of the year has also cast a long and dark shadow over mixed martial arts (MMA) ever since boxing legend Floyd Mayweather and UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor boxed for ten rounds in August.

Now several months removed from that epic showdown, it’s clear now that interest in the UFC’s most recent offerings has been lukewarm at best, and almost nonexistent at worst. Whether due to weak cards or general burnout, the UFC’s cash grab with McGregor vs Mayweather has had serious implications on their product ever since, and that may take months to for UFC owners WME-IMG to fix, if they are ever able to.

We took a look at the six main reasons why this crossover event essentially ruined an entire year of MMA for the UFC.

SHOWTIME Sports

6. Combat Sports Burnout

The rationale behind Mayweather vs McGregor was that this was the fight fans wanted to see, so this is what we’re giving them. While for casual fans that may be true, the nonstop promotion of the event has led to a kind of burnout that has robbed the rest of 2017 of ratings and viewership.

UFC Fight Night: OSP vs Okami did terrible numbers for a free card, even being beaten by Bellator’s event that same weekend in terms of viewership. In fact, almost all of UFC’s cards have suffered from lagging PPV sales and ratings with the exception of UFC 214, which will possibly be Jon Jones’ last gasp as a UFC star.

Casual fans, the coveted demographic that yields a strong influence over WME-IMG’s decision making, spent $100 for Mayweather vs McGregor, and haven’t really spent a dollar towards combat sports since then (perhaps with the exception of Golovkin vs Alvarez in some cases).

Non-hardcore fans are tired of the fight game for the time being, and while that will change, it will take the right card to get them to order a pay-per-view.

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Tony Ferguson Calls Out Conor McGregor With Expletive-Filled Tirade

It wasn’t without a ton of adversity, but Tony Ferguson finally won the interim UFC lightweight championship by submitting rising young contender Kevin Lee with a third-round triangle choke in the main event of tonight’s (Sat., October 7, 2017) UFC 216 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. After the much bigger Lee was repeatedly […]

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It wasn’t without a ton of adversity, but Tony Ferguson finally won the interim UFC lightweight championship by submitting rising young contender Kevin Lee with a third-round triangle choke in the main event of tonight’s (Sat., October 7, 2017) UFC 216 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

After the much bigger Lee was repeatedly able to use his smothering wrestling to ground Ferguson in the early rounds, ‘The Motown Phenom’ began to tire just a little after a brutal and draining weight cut, and that gave ‘El Cucuy’ a window of opportunity to capitalize with his ultra-dangerous bottom game on the mat.

The definitive win put Ferguson’s win streak at an unprecedented 10 straight, and he understandably called out UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor in his post-fight interview with commentator Joe Rogan:

Ferguson was expectedly unhappy with McGregor’s inactivity as champion after he took the entire year off from MMA to fight Floyd Mayweather in the boxing ring. So he voiced his opinion on the subject with a blunt and to-the-point callout:

“Where you at, McNuggets, you fuckin’ piece of shit? I’m gonna kick your ass. You better fuckin’ come and defend that belt. Defend or vacate, motherfucker!”

Ferguson is certainly doing his part to get his massive fight with McGregor.

Many hardcore fans believe McGregor should finally defend a UFC belt, which he has not done since winning the featherweight title from Jose Aldo in December 2015 and the lightweight title from Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 last November.

The bout with Ferguson is a clear booking, but in today’s ‘money fight’-focused UFC landscape, McGregor’s oft-discussed trilogy bout with Nate Diaz could easily surpass Ferguson chance to unify the titles.

Which fight do you think should take place first?

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