Rumor: Conor McGregor vs. Eddie Alvarez Close To Being Finalized For UFC 205

Conor McGregor’s next fight is apparently close to being finalized, and not surprisingly, it’s one that could potentially bring him a second coveted UFC championship. A report surfaced from Big Brand Boys stating sources close to the UFC informed them that McGregor vs. lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez is close to being signed for the main

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Conor McGregor’s next fight is apparently close to being finalized, and not surprisingly, it’s one that could potentially bring him a second coveted UFC championship.

A report surfaced from Big Brand Boys stating sources close to the UFC informed them that McGregor vs. lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez is close to being signed for the main event of November 12’s UFC 205, the promotion’s first-ever event from New York City’s Madison Square Garden after MMA was finally legalized in the Big Apple this summer.

Featherweight champion McGregor was immediately scheduled to face then-lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos in the main event of March’s UFC 196 after he won the featherweight title at UFC 194 in December 2015, but he infamously became embroiled in a high-profile rivalry with Nate Diaz when dos Anjos pulled out of the fight with a broken foot. The rest is history, as Diaz rebounded from a tough first round to batter and submit McGregor, paving the way for the Irish str’s two-day “retirement” before the rematch went down at August 20’s UFC 202.

McGregor won a closely contested majority decision in the fight, setting him up for a number of big-ticket fights, including a potential bout against returning former welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre. But the allure of seeing McGregor as a two-weight titleholder is something that’s simply too lucrative to pass up, and with ‘GSP’ unable to return until December’s UFC 206 from Toronto at the earliest due to USADA’s four-month testing window for retired fighters, this fight became increasingly obvious as the perfect headliner for the UFC’s Big Apple debut.

Hailing from nearby Philadelphia, Alvarez has New York ties with his respected boxing coach Mark Henry. McGregor’s homeland fans can fly to New York to watch him fight much easier than they can fly to Las Vegas, so this fight will be one with emotional ties involved in addition to the prestigious title on the line.

The UFC has yet to announce anything official on the bout, but one is reportedly coming soon. If so, McGregor vs. Alvarez would join Chris Weidman vs. Yoel Romero, Donald Cerrone vs. Kelvin Gastelum, Frankie Edgar vs. Jeremy Stephens, and Rashad Evans vs. Tim Kennedy on the historic, growing card.

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Top 10 Most Outspoken Fighters In The UFC

Mixed martial arts (MMA) fans love to sit down and watch a fighter take to the Octagon who they know is always down to scrap, but fighting style isn’t the only thing that puts butts in the seats or makes you click that ‘BUY’ button on your remote. Throughout the years, many men have taken to

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Mixed martial arts (MMA) fans love to sit down and watch a fighter take to the Octagon who they know is always down to scrap, but fighting style isn’t the only thing that puts butts in the seats or makes you click that ‘BUY’ button on your remote.

Throughout the years, many men have taken to the microphone to make a name for themselves, and we can’t help but love to watch a fighter who knows how to talk trash and back it up when locked inside of a cage with their adversary.

So without further ado, lets take a look at the UFC’s top 10 most outspoken fighters of all time…

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Video: Conor McGregor In Call Of Duty: Infinite Wisdom: Behind-The-Scenes

https://youtu.be/fUezq05xDE0

UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor recently spoke about his participation in the new Call Of Duty: Infinite Wisdom video game, which fans are looking forward to with great enthusiasm.

In the video above, “The N…

mcgregor-call-duty-infinite

https://youtu.be/fUezq05xDE0

UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor recently spoke about his participation in the new Call Of Duty: Infinite Wisdom video game, which fans are looking forward to with great enthusiasm.

In the video above, “The Notorious” one talks about his inclusion in the game in a sit-down interview, which also features excerpts of him working with green screens and special technology to create his character in the game. You also see the actual debut of his animated character in the game.

Conor McGregor last appeared in the Octagon at the UFC 202: Diaz vs. McGregor 2 mega-event, which is believed to have broken the record for most-ordered PPV in UFC history, and paid the Irish star the largest guaranteed fight purse in the history of the UFC. McGregor defeated Diaz in their 170-pound immediate rematch, dropping the Stockton, California native several times en route to a decision victory in one of the most memorable main events of recent memory.

Call Of Duty: Infinite Wisdom is due in stores on November 14th.

UFC Fight Night 94 Weigh-In Video & Results

UFC Fight Night 94 goes down in Hidalgo tomorrow night, meaning its weigh-in day here at LowKickMMA. Fans in the State Farm Arena, Texas will get to see some pivotal bouts in the lightweight and middleweight divisions, as well as some great scraps on the undercard. Dustin Poirier and Michael Johnson are set to pop

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UFC Fight Night 94 goes down in Hidalgo tomorrow night, meaning its weigh-in day here at LowKickMMA. Fans in the State Farm Arena, Texas will get to see some pivotal bouts in the lightweight and middleweight divisions, as well as some great scraps on the undercard. Dustin Poirier and Michael Johnson are set to pop off in the main event. ‘Diamond’ is looking to extend his four-fight win streak en route to a title fight, whereas ‘The Menace’ is a desperate man following two straight losses. This bout has a lot at stake for both men.

The co-main event will pit middleweight burners Uriah Hall and Derek Brunson against each other in a battle of hungry finishers. Will ‘U-Hall’ pull another destructive finish out of the bag, or does Brunson have the chops to rattle another cage at 185 pounds?

dustin poirier

Title Fight With Victory?

Could Dustin Poirier be headed towards a title fight with a win in Hidalgo? Quite possibly so, but the rumours of his old rival Conor McGregor facing Eddie Alvarez could either hinder his hopes, or potentially set him up for the rematch. Either that or he’ll have to wait behind the likes of Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov. With killers like that ahead of Poirier in the queue, he’ll need a huge win in Texas.

Join us for the live stream of the traditional weigh-ins show right here at 5 PM ET. The updated results from the early weigh-ins will be updated at around midday ET. Stay tuned!

Event: UFC Fight Night 94: “Poirier vs. Johnson”
Date: Sat., Sept. 17, 2016
Location: State Farm Arena in Hildalgo, Texas
Broadcast: FOX Sports 1, UFC Fight Pass

FOX Sports 1 Main Event:

155 lbs.: Dustin Poirier vs. Michael Johnson

FOX Sports 1 Co-Main Event:

185 lbs.: Uriah Hall vs. Derek Brunson

FOX Sports 1 Main Card (10 p.m. ET):

155 lbs.: Evan Dunham vs. Rick Glenn
135 lbs.: Albert Morales vs. Alejandro Perez
170 lbs.: Roan Carneiro vs. Kenny Robertson
155 lbs.: Chris Wade vs. Islam Makhachev

FOX Sports “Prelims” (8 p.m. ET):

145 lbs.: Gabriel Benitez vs. Sam Sicilia
170 lbs.: Augusto Montano vs. Belal Muhammad
135 lbs.: Joey Gomez vs. Jose Quinonez

UFC Fight Pass “Prelims” (7 p.m. ET):

170 lbs.: Randy Brown vs. Erick Montano
145 lbs.: Maximo Blanco vs. Chas Skelly

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Debate: The UFC’s Next Breakthrough Stars

The UFC has never had a stretch of business as successful as the last 10 months, cracking the million-buy mark on pay-per-view five times. That’s one more than the entirety of its history to that point.
Stars, especially Conor McGregor and to a l…

The UFC has never had a stretch of business as successful as the last 10 months, cracking the million-buy mark on pay-per-view five times. That’s one more than the entirety of its history to that point.

Stars, especially Conor McGregor and to a lesser extent Ronda Rousey, have driven that newfound success. Fans, as it turns out, buy name value when they decide to plunk down $60 for an evening’s entertainment.

Seeing that particular writing on the wall, the UFC has invested a great deal of time and energy trying to create new stars, breathlessly pushing young fighters like Sage Northcutt and Paige VanZant. But do they have what it takes to carry the banner for the UFC into the next decade? Will fans eventually be willing to spend their hard-earned dollars on the Paige and Sage Show?

Bleacher Report’s Steven Rondina and Patrick Wyman debate the future of the UFC’s star-making enterprise and who, if anyone, will emerge as a draw in the next few years.

 

Steven: We’re here again, Patrick, discussing the future.

Over the last few months we’ve been lucky enough to see a number of the biggest stars in the sport’s history enter the Octagon in quick succession. Anderson Silva, Brock Lesnar and Conor McGregor have all gotten into the cage since July.

On top of that, beloved fan favorites like Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Nate Diaz, Michael Bisping and Robbie Lawler have all put some work in. The future is bright, too, with the potential returns of Ronda Rousey, Georges St-Pierre and Jon Jones all looming on the horizon.

That said, with the exception of Jedrzejczyk, those stars all have one thing in common: They probably won’t be around much longer.

Silva, Bisping and Lawler are all old in the context of professional athletics. GSP, Lesnar and Diaz have all become “special attraction” type fighters, where they may or may not show up once a year. Jones, Rousey and McGregor have all openly discussed retiring young.

Back in 2011, MMA went through a massive transition as Chuck Liddell, BJ Penn, Randy Couture and Tito Ortiz were phased out quickly. We could be quickly approaching another year like that, Patrick, and so I wonder: Who can replace the current crop of talent?

 

Patrick: At this point, we can’t count on Lesnar or St-Pierre ever returning; the former is facing a suspension for a failed drug test, and the latter’s reasonable concerns about his contract might prove to be too much for the UFC. Rousey’s return is uncertain. Lawler is 34 years old, a veteran of 39 professional fights and nearly 15 years in the sport, and he still has never been a fixture outside hardcore circles.

While Jones has been a reliable, if unspectacular, draw, only his feuds with Rashad Evans and Daniel Cormier have produced box-office fireworks. Bisping has real name value and some drawing power even on pay-per-view, but he’s 37 years old. Neither of the Diaz brothers are looking to fight three times per year, though it’s a safe bet they’ll produce big numbers when they choose to take a fight.

So who does that leave?

The rest of the conversation should begin with VanZant rather than Jedrzejczyk. Her time on Dancing with the Stars has made her, if not a household name, at least someone with substantially greater exposure than the Polish dynamo. Her highlight-reel knockout of Bec Rawlings on last month’s UFC on Fox show didn’t hurt, though that event did draw the lowest ratings in the history of the UFC’s relationship with Fox.

VanZant has the look the UFC is after. They made the call to get her on Dancing with the Stars and went out of their way to promote her. The UFC clearly believes it has something in her; do you agree, Steven? Even if she becomes a star, can she back it up in the Octagon?

 

Steven: Contrary to what Dana White says, VanZant doesn’t have the “it” factor. Not in the cage, where she will likely remain a fringe top-10 name for the indefinite future, and not out of the cage, where she lacks any sort of personality.

Whether you like Rousey or not, she’s the complete package. In the cage, she’s an assassin that actually managed to consistently dispatch opponents in under a minute. Out of the cage, she has a distinct aura of confidence and intensity.

And really, VanZant’s run on Dancing with the Stars isn’t that big a deal. The ratings for UFC on Fox 21 would suggest that her lengthy run on DWTS didn’t improve her drawing power as a fighter, and it’s not like there’s any precedent of people achieving lasting celebrity through these season-long game shows.

In six months, nobody will remember who won the show, never even mind who came in second. At that point, VanZant will just be the ninth-best fighter in one of the UFC’s non-revenue-generating weight classes.

VanZant hasn’t really shown anything beyond the fact that she’s pretty and an above-average 115-pound fighter. Unless she has some great cards in her hand and has an amazing poker face, I just don’t see her breaking through into the mainstream, either as a competitor or celebrity.

The UFC has done a good enough job turning her into a strong Fight Night main event, but they’re going to have to look elsewhere if they want to find the next big thing.

 

Patrick: I don’t disagree that VanZant’s ceiling as a fighter probably falls below the very cream of the division, though it’s massively premature to write off an athletic 22-year-old who has all of nine fights to her name. I don’t disagree that she lacks raw charisma, either.

You’re flat-out wrong that nobody will remember VanZant was on DWTS, though. Twelve million people, more than have ever seen a UFC on Fox card, watched the finale of her season. That’s a level of exposure that doesn’t go away.

You don’t explode into mass fame overnight. It may be hard to remember now, but Rousey had four fights in the UFC over the course of two years, along with reality show and movie appearances, before she became a household name.

You build audience familiarity over time, with one appearance on Today or Good Morning America or Access Hollywood leading into the next over a period of years. Eventually, you hit a tipping point.

VanZant has had one fight, on a minor card in an out-of-the-way market that was preempted for NFL preseason games, since she competed on DWTS. Give it some time.

Still, there’s no disputing that she’s not yet an elite fighter, and yet the UFC has chosen to give her a big-time push. The contrast between her and the ultra-talented champion in her division, Jedrzejczyk, couldn’t be clearer. The UFC hasn’t pushed Jedrzejczyk with anything like that intensity.

This gets at the fundamental tension in what the UFC is doing with fighters like VanZant, and it’s why she dominates this discussion: She’s the prime example of the UFC pushing hand-picked competitors before they’ve really done much in the cage and without devoting as much attention to its most skilled and accomplished champions.

Can that tension be resolved, Steven? And what does it say about the UFC’s audience?

 

Steven: It can, to a degree, but a promotional push doesn’t count for anything outside the confines of the MMA sphere. Even then it isn’t a guarantee of popularity.

It’s worth remembering the fate of the UFC’s first pet project, Erick Silva. The Brazilian Bieber got a big push from the company, with preferential placement on cards and plenty of squash matches to keep him looking strong.

Even so, Silva never got over with fans outside Brazil, and was quickly forgotten in his home country. His next fight is on the Fight Night 95 prelims.

None of the UFC’s handpicked stars are immune from that same fate.

On the other hand, we’ve seen time and again that in-cage success is no guarantee of booming buyrates. Neither is having exciting fights. Neither is being champion.

The trick to UFC stardom is to both have in-cage success and resonate with an underrepresented demographic. Rousey exploded in large part due to the simple fact that she caught the eye of women that hadn’t previously looked at MMA. There was a buzz for McGregor among Irish fans before he even entered the UFC, which exploded after he beat Marcus Brimage in his debut.

So what demographics has the UFC not tapped into yet? Luke Thomas recently stated on The MMA Beat that the UFC hasn’t done a brilliant job of attracting African-Americans. The UFC is still courting Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, though the promotion is having trouble cultivating talent beyond former champ Cain Velasquez.

I’m not sure who, exactly, the UFC’s next breakout star will be, but I think it will be whoever manages to warm up those communities to MMA.

 

Patrick: This is the great paradox of the UFC’s last year: What draws eyeballs has become increasingly disconnected from the title picture.

As recently as 2013, the UFC’s four highest-drawing cards featured St-Pierre or Anderson Silva in title bouts. In 2016, a pair of fights featuring the featherweight champion against a lightweight contender inexplicably contested at 170 pounds have done the biggest numbers.

UFC 200, the third-biggest card of the year, featured a women’s bantamweight title fight and an interim featherweight title fight—but much of its box office success had to do with the return of Lesnar, a professional wrestler who hadn’t fought in nearly five years.

Outside of McGregor at featherweight, where the Irishman is unlikely to fight again, and Demetrious Johnson at flyweight, where the fans don’t really seem to care, not a single division’s biggest draw currently holds the title.

Maybe that will change in the future, and the UFC can again push its best fighters as marketable attractions. But it seems more likely that the best fighters and the ones who draw the most eyeballs will continue to diverge.

What this drives home is how rare the combination of talent and marketability actually is.

There are plenty of talented fighters on the UFC’s roster. You can make a star, someone who has the right look, with enough exposure.

But you can’t fake talent, and not everyone is cut out to be in the public eye all the time. Finding a truly elite fighter who can handle the demands of constant media exposure while actually offering something to a mass audience is the rarest thing in combat sports, and the UFC is lucky to have found even one in the form of Conor McGregor.

Let’s make a couple of picks. Who can fulfill all those requirements? I’m going to say Yair Rodriguez (the winner of The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America), Jedrzejczyk, brick-fisted bantamweight contender Cody Garbrandt, and if everything breaks right, CM Punk-slayer Mickey Gall.

 

Steven: I think Tyron Woodley is making the right moves to break through to the next level. He’s got the belt, he has fans caring about his next fight (for better or worse) and he’s actually getting the ball rolling in Hollywood.

In my opinion, the only question there is whether or not the UFC’s going to be smart enough to take him and run to the bank, or if they’ll do their usual routine of lashing out at fighters that don’t bend to their promotional plans.

 

Patrick: Woodley has accomplished that rarest of tasks: making fans care about him, one way or another. Hopefully it leads to big paydays for him, and sets a blueprint that other new champions can follow in the future.

The diversity of potential answers, though, showcases just how hard it is to find a breakout star. There’s no sure thing waiting in the wings, no obvious next mainstream celebrity. It takes time, winning streaks and natural charisma, and we may go years before another bright light emerges.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

JOSE ALDO WANTS ANTHONY PETTIS FOR MONEY FIGHT.

It seems everyone’s catching on to the new economic turn of the UFC. Previous nice guys from Tyron Woodley, Demetrius “Mighty Mouse” Johnson, to now Featherweight interim champ Jose Aldo are calling for big money fights! Where did they learn this current trend? Daddy Dana, that’s who.

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“No more Mr. nice guy…”

It seems everyone’s catching on to the new economic turn of the UFC. Previous nice guys from Tyron Woodley,  Demetrius “Mighty Mouse” Johnson, to now Featherweight interim champ Jose Aldo are calling for big money fights! Where did they learn this current trend? Daddy Dana, that’s who.

In a recent interview with Brazilain TV show Revista Combate, Aldo explained that he’s looking for a big money fight, and if it’s not with Mcgregor, his close second would be former lightweight champion and kick heard round the world performer Anthony Pettis.

“I’m already frustrated that it might happen, but we’ll see,” Aldo recently told Brazilian TV show Revista Combate. “Every night I ask ‘give me one more chance to get in there again with him and I know it won’t happen again.’ but if it’s not him, I think I’d prefer to fight Pettis. I with them learned that I don’t have to look at the promotion’s side, the title run. A fight with Pettis would sell a lot more than Holloway.

He’s right. While Max Holloway has been on a 9 fight win streak since losing to Conor McGregor in 2013, the Anthony Pettis match up is a much bigger fight. And while it may be “fair” for Holloway to get the next big matchup, we all know that term is very fluid in the world of UFC.  Plus, Aldo held the belt for 5 years and is now the #1 contender in a division where the champion is all but vacant, he should have some say.

“Holloway is way tougher than Pettis today,” Aldo said. “‘Do Bronx’ (Oliveira) was winning the fight, but (his cardio) goes down drastically during the fight. I think that a fight with Pettis would sell a lot and is way easier for me. If I had to choose one of them it would be him because it sells more and I have a better chance, but I respect him.”

“I’m trying to get a fight at this UFC card in New York, but we’ll see what ‘Dede’ (Pederneiras) has to say when he comes back. ‘Dede’ is (in Cleveland) now for a meeting with Dana to decide our future. I hope everything goes right. If it’s not against (McGregor) we fight for the undisputed belt. We’ll see.

Before we get into the issue of whether Jose Aldo is ducking anyone let’s not forget that this fight was set to happen years ago. After seeing Jose Aldo defend his belt against Frankie Edgar at UFC 156, Pettis texted Dana White saying he would accept the fight. Pettis later had to pull out due to a knee injury.

“Something interesting happened about 10 minutes ago,” White said at the postfight news conference. “Anthony Pettis said, ‘I want to go to 145 and fight Jose Aldo.’ He told me he’ll make 145.”  –Dana White (2013)

Ultimately it comes down to Dana. Even though the organization has new owners, it seems they’re still leaving him to headline the sport aspect of the UFC. While either fight would be a barn burner, it would be nice to see these two wizards go head to head.

Smart move, or coward’s journey? What do you guys think of Jose Aldo calling out the featherweight newcomer?

 

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