Tag: Preview/Prediction

UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor is looking to make history when he faces Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title at UFC 205 on November 12. 

McGregor (20-3) will become the first person in the organisation’s history to hold two belts if he defeats Alvarez (28-4) at Madison Square Garden, New York City.

Unsurprisingly, the two fighters have already exchanged heated words, with the American questioning McGregor’s ability to endure a lengthy battle and the Irish fighter laughing off Alvarez’s claim to the belt.

“He got blessed,” McGregor said of Alvarez’s fight against Rafael Dos Anjos, as per Michael Kelleher of Sky Sports. “He got blessed with a lucky shot. His UFC career has been horrendous.

“He’s very, very lucky to be in the position he is. He understands that. That’s why he took this fight for the money he was on for the last fight. I mean, that says it all.”

(Warning: Video contains profanity.)

In retaliation Alvarez claimed, per Kelleher, that “this guy’s got eight minutes of fight in him and that’s it. He quits after eight minutes every fight. He’s not a championship fighter. He’s never been. And he’s never ever fought anyone in the UFC like me. Ever.”

It should be a fascinating matchup between two different fighting styles. Alvarez is more of an all-rounder capable of adapting his game to each new opponent, while McGregor is an explosive fighter who looks to get things done early.

      

Key Battles

McGregor’s Opening Blast vs. Alvarez’s Endurance

The Irish fighter’s biggest asset is his powerful left hand, which he will look to use repeatedly in an attempt to end this fight as quickly as possible. He enters the contest with 18 career KO/TKOs, with six of these coming in UFC. 

McGregor’s desire to win early is partly due to the fact that he seems to fade as fights go on—as we saw during his second bout with Nate Diaz—and so Alvarez will do everything he can to absorb the early onslaught and tire his opponent out. Firas Zahabi, head coach of Tristar gym, thinks that going for an early KO is the only option for McGregor:

“Forget about pacing. It’s do or die,” he said, per Anton Tabuena of Bloody Elbow. “Round 1 or 2. You either become two-division champion in Round 1 or 2, or you are going to go down.”

However, McGregor’s explosive tactics failed to put Diaz away in both of their fights. During the first clash, he was easily choked into submission after Diaz absorbed the early punches and found a big shot of his own. A similar story could unfold against the dynamic fighting style of Alvarez, whose durability gives him a slight advantage.

        

McGregor’s Confidence vs. Alvarez’s Fast Start

Alvarez has only been beaten by KO once in his 13-year career, and so McGregor’s early pressing needs to be more considered than ever. As seen during his recent blitz of Dos Anjos, the current lightweight champion is more than capable of springing into an instant barrage of his own.

Despite being the underdog against Dos Anjos, Alvarez stopped his opponent in the first round after some ferocious early pressure. McGregor will be wary of this but won’t lack for confidence and will back himself to inflict early damage. This can leave him open to punishment if Alvarez decides to quickly move forward. McGregor often has a stalking style when his opponent is on the back foot, something Alvarez is unlikely to allow.

“Whenever I get a guy that everyone is high up about, that he’s really dangerous, that he’s killing opponents, I usually knock those guys out,” Alvarez said after the Dos Anjos fight on The MMA Hour, per Danny Segura of MMA Fighting.

“It has nothing to do with me being good or me having a certain technique. I get scared. I literary get afraid to the point where my body reacts in ways that it just makes for phenomenal performances.“

Given that McGregor is the hyped-up favourite who strikes fear into his opponents, Alvarez will feel he can capitalise simply by applying pressure from the off. It should be a tight encounter, but the American is smart and savvy enough to outlast the ferociousness of his competitor.

     

Prediction: Alvarez to win in Round 4

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

The last time Campbell McLaren promoted fights in New York he fled in the early morning to the peanut capital of the world.

Everything about mixed martial arts has changed since McLaren and the UFC chartered a plane on Feb. 7, 1997, that carried besieged executives and hungry fighters to asylum in Alabama.

As day broke over the rural southeastern city of Dothan, Ala., everyone associated with the UFC, which had been driven from Niagara Falls following a judge’s ruling less than 24 hours earlier to effectively block the event, were happy to simply have a chance to put on a show.

UFC 12 may not have gone off as expected but somehow it happened, and ranks among the most important events in the early history of what evolved into the big business of professional mixed martial arts. Nearly 20 years after the incredible relocation of UFC 12, precipitating the sport’s most difficult days in North America, McLaren, a key player behind selling spectacle as sport, remains eager to promote mixed fights.

Especially in the Empire State.

Friday in Verona, N.Y., a month ahead of the $4 billion UFC’s mega-event on Nov. 12 at Madison Square Garden that marks the official debut of New York State Athletic Commission licensed MMA, McLaren’s upstart promotion, Combate Americas, will produce the first live broadcast of caged bouts from New York since the UFC’s nascency.

“I’m a genius or I answered the phone, it could go either way,” joked McLaren, who received a lucrative site fee from the Turning Stone Resort Casino for the mid-October date. “We lucked into this. We’re very happy to go. And I’m very happy I get to beat the UFC by a month.”

Located on the sovereign land of the Oneida Indian Nation, Turning Stone hosts New York’s first pro MMA event since Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill that overturned a ban on the sport in April. The New York State Athletic Commission began regulating MMA in September, however Combate Americas will be aired on UFC Fight Pass and beIN SPORTS’ Spanish language channel without state licensing since tribal lands are sovereign.

For a man who shouldered some of the blame for getting professional MMA banned in New York due partly to the early UFC’s take-no-prisoners marketing, it’s quite a spot.

McLaren, 60, hoped to promote his first event in the Bronx, but rather than working with the newly empowered NYSAC, which has drawn the ire of the combat sports community in New York because of beefed up insurance provisions that critics say makes promoting fights cost prohibitive, McLaren will rely on the Oneida Indian Nation Athletic Commission for sanctioning.

McClaren claimed Combate Americas will follow insurance guidelines used by athletic commissions in California and Nevada.

“We’re not trying to dodge anything,” McLaren said. “I did that before. I ain’t doing that again. This just for us is a great event in a part of New York that doesn’t get a lot of MMA.”

New York fight watchers haven’t been able to watch live MMA outside of the underground or amateur kind since Sept. 8, 1995, when Semaphore Entertainment Group, headed by Bob Meyrowitz, promoted UFC 7, “The Brawl in Buffalo,” in front of more than 10,000 fans at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

McLaren, a top executive with SEG, remembers UFC 7 fondly as the groundbreaking time he witnessed a fighter combine combative arts in a way that resembles the style so prevalent today. Marco Ruas, one of the all-time great Brazilian competitors, blended grappling and striking as well as anyone ever had to that point. He proved the efficacy of mixing techniques by blasting 6-foot-8, 330-pound tough guy Paul Varelans in the finals of an eight-man tournament.

“Not only was New York the place where UFC was born—Park Avenue and 57th Street is where it all started—but I also think the first real MMA fight where we saw the parts mix was in Buffalo for UFC 7,” McLaren said.

The Buffalo card seemed like one SEG could build upon.

SEG’s reputation as a group that implicitly ran from government regulation is belied by its history in New York, which in fact legalized caged combat at the behest of the UFC in 1996 before winds changed under media and political pressures.

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain’s campaign to form a federal boxing commission was in full swing. As an example of why such a thing was needed, he held up SEG’s UFC as what might happen in a lawless situation. Also, the UFC wasn’t the only mixed fighting group around. Based on the early success of the UFC, fledgling competitors soon appeared, most notably Battlecade, backed by Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione. A press conference in Manhattan led by the magazine publisher’s son, Anthony Guccione, stirred up enough dust for it to land on the desk of New York City mayor Rudolph Guilliani, who took up the issue with fellow Republican, Gov. George Pataki.

In advance of UFC 12 in Niagara Falls the athletic commission changed its rules governing the UFC to the point of making the bouts unrecognizable—and likely much less marketable. A 40-foot cage was mandated. Grappling and chokeholds were outlawed, and boxing gloves and headgear were required.

McLaren called it a “perfect storm” that cost SEG any chance of running a sustainable no-holds-barred fight business in the U.S., and kept UFC out of Madison Square Garden until the state reversed its ban on the sport earlier this year.

“For us it was easier to leave,” McLaren said. “We had been fighting [in the courts] for a while. We were winning some, losing some. It was easier just to pack up and go to Dothan.”

As a result fight fans in Niagara Falls missed out on history: The UFC crowned its first heavyweight champion when Mark “The Hammer” Coleman submitted Dan “The Beast” Severn. It may not  the same ring to it, but McLaren is also bringing New York fans a milestone moment on Oct. 14. Combate Americas is set to crown its first titleholder when bantamweights John Castenada and Gustavo Lopez meet in the night’s main event.

What frontiers remain left to conquer for McLaren? There aren’t any reasons to run for the hills, yet he’s looking south.

For a promotion built on courting Hispanic audiences, Mexico awaits.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 204 was a show designed for one fighter (Michael Bisping) and one city (Manchester, England). UFC 205 on Saturday, Nov. 12 is so much more.

Twenty years ago, mixed martial arts was the Wild West of sports. It had few rules, little regulation and no equipment. It was labeled as “human cockfighting” by politicians and actively embraced the idea that it was an underground blood sport.

Unsurprisingly, that led to its banning in many states in 1997, just a short time before UFC 12 was to return to New York. Worse yet, that was followed by a number of pay-per-view carriers refusing to broadcast the sport, leaving the UFC with few places to set up events and few ways for fans to see them.

Obviously, things changed with time. The UFC cleaned itself up and improved its image. It returned to television, made the push to network television and, eventually, became a normal part of the sports world.

There was, however, one black mark that lingered from MMA‘s dark ages: The sport remained banned in New York.

Sure, it was easy to forget given the UFC’s gains at the box office and international expansion. And sure, it was easy to shrug it off as silly politics, given the fact that the lingering prohibition was largely rooted in a struggle between the UFC’s ownership group and the culinary workers union it viciously fought to keep out of its casinos.

Still, that blemish lasted for years on end. The UFC sank millions upon millions into lobbyists and lawsuits to push into the Empire State, which led to disappointment after disappointment…

Until March 2016. In a surprising turnaround, the New York State Assembly voted in favor of legalizing MMA, and the UFC is celebrating this turn with one of the biggest, best events in its history.

This is the UFC’s coming-out party, and because of that, it’s worth being excited and worth taking a good look at the entire event.

Begin Slideshow