Following Georges St-Pierre’s riveting third-round submission to win the middleweight title from Michael Bisping in the main event of last Saturday’s (November 4, 2017) UFC 217, several high-profile fights sit on the bargaining table for the UFC’s newest two-weight champ. The obvious one is a unification bout with current interim middleweight champ Robert Whittaker, who […]
Following Georges St-Pierre’s riveting third-round submission to win the middleweight title from Michael Bisping in the main event of last Saturday’s (November 4, 2017) UFC 217, several high-profile fights sit on the bargaining table for the UFC’s newest two-weight champ.
The obvious one is a unification bout with current interim middleweight champ Robert Whittaker, who is currently recovering from a knee injury suffered while winning the interim belt versus Yoel Romero at July’s UFC 213. It’s a fight that UFC President Dana White insists will be next for GSP, yet there’s another high-profile bout that would out-draw this fight in spades.
That’s St-Pierre’s oft-discussed super fight with lightweight champ Conor McGregor, a bout that’s gained a ton of steam since St-Pierre officially won the middleweight title amidst speculation about his effectiveness after four years off. Both fighters would potentially hold up their respective divisions to make it happen – although that’s nothing new with McGregor – but it would also almost certainly be the biggest fight the UFC could stage at this point, and perhaps ever.
If and when either fight happens, St-Pierre is already favored over McGregor and an underdog to Whittaker according to early odds recently released on Bovada.com. According to their numbers, St-Pierre is a -150 favorite over McGregor, who came in at +120, and a -135 underdog to Whittaker, who is currently a -165 favorite.
This marks a change from the initial release of the odds yesterday, when St-Pierre was a -160 favorite over +130 dog Whittaker. Many hardcore fans believe the much younger Whittaker would defeat St-Pierre after trouncing Romero and Ronaldo Souza in 2017, and apparently the betting public agreed enough to skew the odds in Whittaker’s favor – and by no small margin – in just one day’s time.
Who do you believe should be favored in St-Pierre’s prospective bouts in the foreseeable future?
All of the sudden, Georges St-Pierre has a lot of leverage with the UFC. In a surprising outcome to many, the longtime welterweight champion returned to the Octagon after almost four years off and submitted Michael Bisping in the main event of last Saturday night’s (Nov. 4, 2017) UFC 217 from Madison Square Garden in New […]
All of the sudden, Georges St-Pierre has a lot of leverage with the UFC.
In a surprising outcome to many, the longtime welterweight champion returned to the Octagon after almost four years off and submitted Michael Bisping in the main event of last Saturday night’s (Nov. 4, 2017) UFC 217 from Madison Square Garden in New York City, and now the fight game is his proverbial oyster.
Now that he’s the middleweight champ, the fans who said it was a travesty for Bisping to be fighting a former welterweight who had never fought at 185 after four years off will almost definitely be calling for him to defend his new belt, and indeed UFC President Dana White insists that unifying the belts with interim champion Robert Whittaker will be next for “Rush.”
It’s a fight that makes the most sense in terms of pure meritocracy, something that the UFC was founded on and also an aspect of mixed martial arts (MMA) we don’t see a whole lot of in this trash-talking, star-driven era of today. To illustrate that point, a point of view that’s surfaced from many experienced media members in the fight game is that St-Pierre should take on lightweight champion Conor McGregor, who also has an interim champion waiting to take him on in his own division, in what would almost assuredly be the biggest MMA fight of all-time.
That potential over-the-top booking, which would conceivably take place at 170 pounds where both men have fought in the UFC, comes at a time when the promotion needs a truly huge fight (Mayweather vs. McGregor doesn’t count as their own), and it’s no secret UFC owners Endeavor could use a smashing pay-per-view hit after a yearlong slump in 2017. St-Pierre vs. McGregor is a huge fight – it would feature two champions who are the two biggest names in the sport at the time.
The fact that the larger St-Pierre would be heavily favored due to his dominant wrestling and grappling doesn’t really matter because we’ve seen the decision-making process for booking fights in today’s UFC has more to do with dollar signs that actual sport. Without a true star like either McGregor or St-Pierre in 2017, they’ve struggled to build any momentum, so it would be kind of silly to not book the star power-driven bout now that they actually have one.
The financial ramifications of the bout would be obvious – it would make more money than any other mixed martial arts bout in the sport’s 24-year history. But it could really only happen if both fighters abandoned their current titles because leaving two of the UFC’s best divisions held up even longer after a full year of inactivity already would leave the legitimacy of the UFC in serious question, something many fans already believe has happened this year. Maybe St-Pierre could cut all the way down to lightweight to challenge McGregor for a third UFC title, but that would take quite some time and the entire promotion can’t wait for his next move.
They already do that with McGregor. Two fighters holding up basically everything from 155 to 185 pounds would just be too much.
If both keep their titles and book the fight at 170 or a catchweight, then the actual value of UFC championships will have to be put in serious question. They’d be more like flashy pieces of pseudo-importance the promotion attaches to pay-per-views rather than true gold to be defended.
Overall the discussion is a difficult one. St-Pierre vs. Whittaker and McGregor vs. Ferguson just don’t have that same zing that a St-Pierre vs. McGregor super fight does. Few, if ever, really do. There are just some issues with it being booked right away. It may be a bit of a copout, but I’m not saying it is or is not the right fight to book at this time. If young fighters like Whittaker and Ferguson want to fight for the titles in their prime, perhaps it’s best for St-Pierre and McGregor to abandon the official belts and sign on for the biggest sort of the big fights they seem to be looking for at this points in their respective careers.
The backlash directed towards McGregor and to a lesser extent, St-Pierre would probably be drowned out by the sheer volume of checks being cashed. If that’s enough for McGregor to potentially put his legacy in question, well, this is prizefighting at the highest level, after all.
Do you think the UFC should strike while the iron is hot with potentially their biggest fight of all-time?
With the MMA world focused on this weekend’s (Sat., November 4, 2017) UFC 217 from New York City, the hottest topics in the fight game are still when and against whom UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor will set foot back into the Octagon. McGregor teased a title defense against interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson during […]
With the MMA world focused on this weekend’s (Sat., November 4, 2017) UFC 217 from New York City, the hottest topics in the fight game are still when and against whom UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor will set foot back into the Octagon.
McGregor teased a title defense against interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson during a recent Q&A in his native Dublin, but also left the door open for a potential trilogy bout with rival Nate Diaz or any number of potential boxing crossover fights.
That left his UFC return uncertain at best, but based on what he revealed during a short Q&A session surrounding the debut of the documentary film about his life, there’s a much bigger topic that has to be hashed out before “The Notorious” fights for the UFC again. According to MMA Junkie’s Chamatkar Sandhu, McGregor revealed he will not fight until he has a promoter’s stake:
McGregor says now that he's also a promoter he's not stepping into the Octagon again unless he has a promoters stake.
That may not come as a surprise to many, as during a down 2017 without him in the actual UFC, it’s clear the promotion needs him, perhaps much more than he needs them. If he does indeed get the promoter’s stake in the company that he very well may deserve, he’d like to get a fight booked in Ireland:
McGregor says before it's all said and done he'd like to get a fight done in Ireland.
Sandhu clarified that the Q&A session was a short one, but the main takeaways were that the UFC was understandably trying to get McGregor back into the octagon before year’s end to bolster a sinking bottom line, and McGregor wouldn’t be playing ball without part ownership of his next fight:
That's it. It was a short Q&A but the main takeaway is the UFC want McGregor back in by the end of the year but CM wants a promoters stake.
So McGregor has reportedly drawn a proverbial line in the sand for new UFC owners Endeavor (formerly WME-IMG), and after they let him take the entirety of 2017 off MMA to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a boxing ring, they most likely aren’t going to be too happy about the position he’s now put them in.
They also don’t seem like people who like to be pushed around, even by the biggest star in MMA.
Should the UFC give in and grant McGregor his promoter’s stake, or is he getting too big for his own good?
We’re only four days away from this weekend’s (Nov. 4, 2017) UFC 217 from Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the overall hype for what should legitimately be the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view (PPV) of 2017 just doesn’t seem to be there. By all accounts, UFC 217 has all the makings of a blockbuster card, […]
We’re only four days away from this weekend’s (Nov. 4, 2017) UFC 217 from Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the overall hype for what should legitimately be the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view (PPV) of 2017 just doesn’t seem to be there.
By all accounts, UFC 217 has all the makings of a blockbuster card, with a rarely-seen three title fights and the return of a bonified MMA legend and G.O.A.T. candidate in Georges St-Pierre.
Additionally, the Cody Garbrandt vs. T.J. Dillashaw co-main event was arguably one of the most anticipated title fights of the year until Garbrandt suffered a back injury and the bout lost much of its momentum, but it still remains one of the most closely-matched title fights in MMA and brings a true bad blood-fueled backstory along with it. Dominant women’s strawweight champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk will also attempt to tie Ronda Rousey’s record for most consecutive women’s title defenses with 6 when she meets Rose Namajunas for the gold.
Photo: Joe Camporeale for USA TODAY Sports
Merely typing out that summary of all the MMA goodness UFC 217 contains is enough to make a true fan’s jaw drop, yet UFC 217 just isn’t bringing the attention that a potentially historic card like this one should. The topic has been debated over and again leading into this weekend, so much so that much of the discussion about the card has been centered on its supposed lack of attention rather than its world-class lineup and potential for explosive action in the cage. Even as I write about the topic today, I see surprisingly few articles about the event featured on MMA sites around the web, including our own.
What is the reasoning behind that, you ask? The reasons are myriad, but the main factor why UFC 217 simply isn’t delivering the buzz it should be is the fact that the UFC let their biggest star take the entire year off to fight (and lose to) Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match, and in doing so, they created a circus that was simply impossible to live up to in the minds of casual fans. True, the potential payday of Mayweather vs. McGregor was probably too big to pass up – even for the UFC’s secondary position in the deal – but it did not come without consequence.
In many ways, Mayweather vs. McGregor was indicative of today’s new era of MMA, one where fighters attempt to build up and sign on for the biggest possible bouts in terms of online exposure and money thanks to McGregor’s unparalleled success at doing just that. It’s a time where rankings and legitimacy mean little if a fight makes sense in terms of dollars. Prizefighters can hardly be blamed for operating along those lines, yet MayMac pushed it over the top into a territory the UFC is clearly struggling to recover from.
Photo by Noah K. Murray – USA TODAY Sports
Here’s why. It all began with the over-the-top promotional world tour in July, a mixed bag of results that pushed hype for the fight to perhaps never-before-seen levels in MMA. Complete with racist undertones and homophobic slurs, the four-city whirlwind nevertheless accomplished its goal and propelled MayMac to a reportedly record-breaking PPV number worldwide.
That’s great for those involved, including the UFC – but here’s the main problem that has resulted in UFC 217 seeming like a sort of afterthought, which it clearly should not be: when you make a circus for casual fans, anything after that, especially in the months directly after it, will simply fail to live up to that unattainable bar.
The overall lack of PPV success in 2017 proves the climate we’re living in – one that predicates on an all-or-nothing basis based on McGregor – and this year, with “The Notorious” out of MMA action, it’s been next to nothing far more than it’s been all as UFC PPVs have faltered to record-setting lows in the past couple of months.
Perhaps Bisping’s lack of activity as middleweight champion as he waited all year for his so-called “money fight” with St-Pierre has fans tired of his antics and is, therefore, affecting UFC 217’s buzz adversely.
St-Pierre’s relatively unknown status with newer, more casual fans who began watching MMA because of MMA and Rousey will certainly contribute to its lack of success if it does not, however. GSP’s admitted lack of trash-talking skill also isn’t helping the fight sell in an era where a brash superstar like McGregor is king.
UFC 217 could certainly deliver at the last minute with a solid PPV performance that defies mine and many other media members’ predictions, or it may not. We’ll have to wait and see on that.
But the main motivating factor for UFC 217 not living up to the billing of a massive NYC event with three title fights will fall on the spectacle of Mayweather vs. McGregor because it was a once-in-a-lifetime event – for better or worse.
Once you set the bar at that level in today’s trash talk-centered MMA landscape, however, the UFC is finding out that it’s simply impossible to shift the focus to anything but, even if you offer fans three high-level title fights in one night.
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 […]
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.”
We now know the actual PPV (pay-per-view) numbers for the “The Money Fight.” The biggest fight thus far this year saw Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor, which took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, on August 26, 2017. It was scheduled for twelve rounds. Mayweather extended his […]
We now know the actual PPV (pay-per-view) numbers for the “The Money Fight.”
The biggest fight thus far this year saw Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor, which took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, on August 26, 2017. It was scheduled for twelve rounds.
Mayweather extended his professional boxing undefeated streak to (50–0) by defeating McGregor by technical knockout (TKO) in the 10th round.
UFC President Dana White recently told The Wall Street Journal’s “The Unnamed Podvideocast (transcript courtesy of MMA Junkie) that the event drew 6.7 million pay-per-view buys around the world which means that it smashed the record set by Mayweather’s bout in 2015 against Manny Pacquiao. It also means the fight raked in the neighborhood of $670 million in PPV revenue alone.
“We broke the record in Australia,” White said. “We broke the record in the U.K. at 4 in the morning, broke the record in Spain, Canada, and the United States.”
White also noted the UFC policies PPV piracy. Although he didn’t specify whether “The Money Fight” would spur a new wave of lawsuits directed at those who illegally viewed the event.
“(It was the) most pirated fight of all time,” White said with a laugh. “(On) social media, it was the most talked about (event). It was the highest bet fight ever in the history of Las Vegas. Highest bet sporting event. Bigger than the Super Bowl.”
Regarding money, Mayweather’s guaranteed disclosed paycheck was $100,000,000 while McGregor’s guaranteed disclosed paycheck was $30,000,000. The purse for the two fighters was expected to be substantially higher for each.
This marked Mayweather’s retirement bout. In regards to McGregor, his options are still in tacked as he has two obvious fights that he could take next inside the world-famous Octagon. He could fight Nate Diaz for the third time or make his first title defense as the lightweight champion against interim champion Tony Ferguson.
