Is it possible for UFC fight cards to have a playoff atmosphere?
I mean, no. There’s no playoffs, so no. But if by “playoff atmosphere” what you really mean is that a certain sporting event has a special, extra-level kind of feel to it, then yes.
That …
Is it possible for UFC fight cards to have a playoff atmosphere?
I mean, no. There’s no playoffs, so no. But if by “playoff atmosphere” what you really mean is that a certain sporting event has a special, extra-level kind of feel to it, then yes.
That will happen when there are two titles on the line and 63 percent of your lineup has immediate divisional implications, as is the case with the bright and deep fight card that is UFC 189, which goes down this Saturday from Las Vegas.
Sure, the headliner lost some luster when Jose Aldo broke that rib. But it’s still plenty shiny thanks to ConorMcGregor, probably the UFC’s biggest non-Ronda Rousey star at the moment, and the interim belt the UFC so graciously procured for the occasion in the absence of Aldo’s regular championship strap. And speaking of procuring things, how about Chad Mendes? That’s a pretty stiff test for the Irishman.
And we’ll get into that. But there’s also the matter of this other title fight, and there’s no interims about it. Champion Robbie Lawler will face a very compelling challenger in the young Canadian phenom, Mr. Rory MacDonald.
As alluded to previously, though, six of the evening’s 11 cards feature at least one immediate contender or someone who would become a contender with a win. That is pretty good. What follows is a complete guide to the card, including information capsules, predictions and viewing coordinates for each and every bout. Let’s get it on.
The full extent to which the world was ignoring Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald didn’t hit home until the top trending topic of UFC 189 became Jose Aldo’s ribs.
That’s saying something, since we had already overlooked Saturday’…
The full extent to which the world was ignoring Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald didn’t hit home until the top trending topic of UFC 189 became Jose Aldo’s ribs.
That’s saying something, since we had already overlooked Saturday’s UFC Welterweight Championship fight between Lawler and MacDonald for months. From the moment the UFC made the pragmatic but precedent-bucking decision to make Aldo’s featherweight title defense against Conor McGregor this pay-per-view’s main event, we pretty much knew how things were going to go.
McGregor and Aldo got all the headlines. They got the “world tour.” They got the documentary series and the late-night talk show appearances.
Lawler and MacDonald? They got mostly bupkis.
Until the mad scramble that ended with Chad Mendes subbing in for the injured Aldo last Tuesday, you could be forgiven for not knowing a 170-pound title fight was even on this card. This week—perhaps in tacit acknowledgement that McGregor vs. Mendes won’t be the PPV juggernaut that McGregor-Aldo might have been—Lawler and MacDonald have finally received a bit more of the spotlight.
Better late than never? Maybe, though naturally neither guy will publicly cop to being troubled by playing second fiddle to the 145-pounders.
“That does not bother me at all,” Lawler said during last week’s conference call, via Sherdog.com’s Mike Sloan. “I don’t care if I’m the first fight or the last fight. … I just stick to what I do and that’s train hard and concentrate on myself. I let the UFC do the promoting.”
And look, early on it was perfectly understandable that the UFC gave top billing to the biggest featherweight fight in history. McGregor’s brogue’d-out braggadocio juxtaposed against Aldo’s cold-eyed death stare was going to make everybody a lot of money. Matchmakers knew it. UFC accountants knew it.
Lawler and MacDonald probably knew it too.
But then news came down that Aldo had suffered a rib injury—broken, bruised, nobody could quite decide—and the general consensus seemed to be that the sky was falling.
First, we fretted that Aldo might pull out. Then we fretted that even if he didn’t pull out, we’d be cheated out of seeing him fight McGregor at 100 percent. Then he did pull out, and we settled, begrudgingly, on Mendes, though many among us sniffed the air haughtily and noted UFC 189 now wouldn’t be quite the jaw-dropper we were hoping to witness.
At some point amid all this hand-wringing over the little guys, it’s possible Lawler and MacDonald—somewhere deep in the private recesses of their brains—might have felt a little bit left out. After all, neither of them had suffered an injury. They were both still planning on making it to the cage. If the UFC 189 PPV needed saving, the 170-pound championship clash may well have been up to the challenge.
Granted, their first fight at UFC 167 in September 2013 was a decent, back-and-forth scrap, but it didn’t quite set our hair on fire. Lawler won a split decision after largely controlling a slow-paced first round with leg kicks and then turning the third into an all-out blitz, brutalizing MacDonald with heavy punches from all positions.
The 25-year-old Canadian also had his moments, though they lacked the oomph of Lawler’s best sequences. MacDonald did his most compelling work with takedowns, stealing the second round by planting Lawler on his back with less than two minutes on the clock and then saving himself in the third with timely tackles when he appeared to be on the ropes.
MacDonald ended the fight on top, hammering away with punches and elbows, but it was the kind of inconsistent performance that has earned him a mixed reputation with MMA fans. Lawler clearly had him on the verge of a stoppage in the final stanza—including knocking him flat with an uppercut at one point—and had the fight gone five rounds, it’s possible Lawler might have finished.
Last week while reflecting on the fight with MMA Junkie.com, MacDonald made it sound as though he just didn’t want to be in there with Lawler at the time:
I had a couple things in training and my body wasn’t feeling good; I just lost motivation. I couldn’t train as hard as I usually did and the injury kind of made me not focused. It just made me not into it. I think it was just my hunger was not there. I wasn’t really into the fight at that point. Before that fight I was like, ‘Oh, I just kind of want this to be over.’ I wasn’t really interested in fighting. I just wanted to get it over and done with and just relax.
This weekend’s fight will have the benefit of the championship rounds, if not the publicity befitting a championship contest. Both guys come in riding three-fight win streaks. MacDonald last lost to Lawler in the aforementioned bout. Since then, he’s bounced back with wins over Demian Maia, Tyron Woodley and Tarec Saffiedine.
Lawler last lost to Johny Hendricks in their original scrap at UFC 171 for the title vacated by Georges St-Pierre. While Hendricks took the championship in that initial meeting, he also inherited an extended stint on the shelf, owing to a torn bicep he suffered during the fight. Meanwhile, Lawler kept right on trucking, beating Jake Ellenberger and Matt Brown before (barely) trumping Hendricks in their rematch at UFC 181.
And so, here we are: Two of the world’s best welterweights arguably at the height of their powers are about to throw down for UFC gold.
No, they don’t hate each other. In fact, both Lawler and MacDonald have been downright civil since signing on for this bout a few months ago—and maybe that was the problem.
Neither of these guys specializes in running his yap, and this pairing wasn’t going to spawn any epic drama the way Aldo vs. McGregor did. They’re just two consummate professionals who are going to go out on Saturday night and vie to be the best in the world.
For a complete afterthought in the UFC 189 circus and a fight that for a while there was running second to a guy’s injured ribs, it’s hard to complain about that.
There’s a ton of room for unintentional comedy in MMA. One might even argue that identifying this comedy and harnessing it to help you perform daily tasks like weeding your garden or dealing with the regular absurdity of MMA is a real tentpole of healt…
There’s a ton of room for unintentional comedy in MMA. One might even argue that identifying this comedy and harnessing it to help you perform daily tasks like weeding your garden or dealing with the regular absurdity of MMA is a real tentpole of healthy MMA fandom.
Among the emerging stars in this area is one Rory “Red King” MacDonald, who faces Robbie Lawler for the UFC welterweight title this Saturday at UFC 189.
That bout got us thinking. Who are the superstars who make it happen most? Who accidentally brings the hilarity? From the socially awkward to emcee of the brodown, these are the most unintentionally funny fighters across the history of this sport.
More or less, every fighter on this list happens to be (or has been) an elite fighter, which makes his accidental humor all the richer. There’s a certain, shall we say, single-mindedness accompanying that level that can often stunt development in other areas.
Conor McGregor is confident ahead of his UFC 189 matchup against Chad Mendes on Saturday, July 11.
Confident to the tune of $3 million, in fact.
According to UFC President Dana White, McGregor made a bet with the promotion’s top executives,…
ConorMcGregor is confident ahead of his UFC 189 matchup against Chad Mendes on Saturday, July 11.
Confident to the tune of $3 million, in fact.
According to UFC President Dana White, McGregor made a bet with the promotion’s top executives, offering to put down $3 million on himself.
MMAFighting.com reporter Ariel Helwani relayed the quote via Twitter, which White dropped on a recent airing of The Jim Rome Show.
Before Mendes, however, McGregor has another opponent to battle: his weight.
A recent report from LowKickMMA.com revealed that McGregor will need to drop around 27 pounds before weighing in Friday before the fight. Some people spend years trying to lose that amount of weight, and McGregor will attempt to do the deed in around two weeks (and counting down).
The effects of this brutal weight cut are already visible, as indicated by a recent Instagram post from the Irish sensation.
McGregor certainly doesn’t look happy (and understandably so), but his confidence is fully intact if White’s words are true.
While betting with your bosses on a fight is perhaps unprofessional, there’s no doubt McGregor is dead serious about his prediction.
What do you think? Should McGregor lay down the cash, or would betting against Mendes send him toward bankruptcy?
UFC 189’s main event of Chad Mendes and Conor McGregor isn’t the featherweight title fight fans thought they’d be seeing, but it’s one of the best consolation prizes the organization could have offered.
Jose Aldo and the featherweight championship gav…
UFC 189‘s main event of Chad Mendes and ConorMcGregor isn’t the featherweight title fight fans thought they’d be seeing, but it’s one of the best consolation prizes the organization could have offered.
Jose Aldo and the featherweight championship gave way to Mendes and an interim title, but what makes the bout interesting still remains.
In a way, UFC 189’s main event was never about the title. It was about McGregor. It would appear he has everything he needs to be the UFC’s next big star.
He’s a charismatic personality with endless confidence and a knack for knocking people out. Four of his five wins under the UFC banner have come by way of knockout. As MMA Infographics demonstrates, the man simply knows how to finish fights:
Hate him or love him, the Irishman has already proven he’s good. The only question left now is how good. At this point, that question is a little more difficult to answer. While wins have all come against good competition, none of it has come against the top tier of his division. At the time of this writing, only one of McGregor‘s wins are over a fighter in the top 10 of the division.
The names that make up his five-fight UFC record don’t exactly create the traditional path to the title. His opponents have been predominantly of the striking variety. Now McGregor gets the opportunity to answer the one question naysayers can still ask of him—how will he do against a wrestler?
When: Saturday, July 11
Start Time: Fight Pass prelims at 7 p.m. ET (subscription required); Fox Sports 1 prelims at 8 p.m. ET; main card pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET
The clash of styles between Mendes and McGregor is more interesting than the original matchup of McGregor vs. Aldo. While it would have been great fun to watch the elite striking of McGregor and Aldo go back-and-forth the additional dimension of Mendes‘ wrestling is another layer of intrigue.
Mendes‘ isn’t one-dimensional, though. He has proven that he has power on the feet and the numbers paint the picture of a fighter who is able to avoid damage in the stand-up game. Here’s how the two fighters match up statistically according to FightMetric.
Looking at those numbers a few things stand out. First, McGregor‘s perfect takedown defense. On the surface, that would point to a man who doesn’t have any issues with defensive wrestling. However, upon closer inspection, he’s only had to defend five takedowns in his UFC career.
Dennis Siver tried to take him down three times while Diego Brandao put in two attempts in their bout. Neither is on the same planet as Mendes when it comes to wrestling.
The other thing that jumps out is McGregor‘s sheer volume of strikes landed. The Notorious ranks fourth in the entire UFC at 5.72 significant strikes landed. His accuracy is nothing to brag about. But that’s a byproduct of his style in the cage.
As Jack Slack of Fightland explains, not every strike McGregor throws is designed to land. He’s great at creating openings with strikes that encourage his opponent to engage:
This is the beauty of McGregor‘s game. The seemingly wild kicks almost always leave him in a position to bounce away and come back in with his perfect left straight. Later in the fight, he was able to drop Brandao with a wheel kick and that highlighted the other facet of its importance—if you just stand there and take them you’re going to get hurt. The so-called ‘hipster kicks’ demand the action which McGregor, a counter puncher at heart, thrives off of.
This brings us to the last significant difference between the two fighters. McGregor is the much bigger of the two. The Irishman will have an eight-inch reach and three-inch height advantage. According to ChaelSonnen on the Jim Rome Show((h/t LowkickMMA.com for the transcription), McGregor will cut from 172 pounds to 145 in the lead-up to the fight.
Being the much longer and conceivably bigger fighter, McGregor has a lot of space to use his feints and kicks to set up counter-punching opportunities.
How well Mendes is able to close that distance without getting countered will tell the tale of this fight.
Prediction
Predictions for this bout are sure to be all over the map. There are definitely more questions than answers at this point. Brett Okamoto of ESPN predicts that McGregor will win via TKO in the third round citing Mendes‘ short time to prepare for the fight on late notice.
It’s this completeness that compels me to go with Mendes on Saturday. McGregor will have the range advantage, but Mendes’s explosive ability to close the distance will negate that with a quickness. I see this one either remaining standing or with Mendes in top position after taking McGregor to the ground. While I’m not necessarily convinced that Mendes will lay McGregor out like he has many of his other UFC opponents, I do see him controlling the fight for the majority of its 25 minutes en route to a decision win.
Neither man will likely separate from the other as the picks continue to roll in throughout the week. According to Odds Shark, Mendes is only a slight underdog (7-5) to the less-proven McGregor.
If anything, those odds may even out as fight week gives way to fight night. If McGregor‘s massive weight cut doesn’t go according to plan, the odds may even swing in Mendes‘ favor.
Unless that happens, it feels like it’s the right thing to do to give McGregor the edge. For all his bluster and sizzle, there is some substance to the hype train.
Unlike many flashy prospects before him, McGregor‘s game isn’t just predicated on pure power or speed. He’s displayed a fight IQ that is as high as any young fighter. His ability to adjust to opponents and lure them into his type of fight has been apparent in his run with the UFC.
We may see him in more danger than he’s ever been in, but it’s hard to pick against his supreme confidence and style to make UFC 189 his official announcement to the MMA world as a bona fide star.
In a matchup that is certainly being overshadowed by the circus surrounding Conor McGregor’s every move, UFC welterweight champion Robbie Lawler and top contender Rory MacDonald will settle their differences this Saturday at UFC 189.
They met once befo…
In a matchup that is certainly being overshadowed by the circus surrounding Conor McGregor’s every move, UFC welterweight champion Robbie Lawler and top contender Rory MacDonald will settle their differences this Saturday at UFC 189.
They met once before back at UFC 167, resulting in a close split-decision victory for Lawler, but this time it’s for UFC gold.
Not only will it be the champion’s first title defense, but also a long-awaited opportunity for MacDonald, as he attempts to walk a path once blazed by current mentor and former 170-pound king Georges St-Pierre.
Needless to say, Lawler vs. MacDonald may very well be the most exciting title fight the division has seen in years, one that will pin a heavy-handed wrecking ball against a strategic sharpshooter.
Here is a full head-to-toe breakdown for the only true championship tilt this weekend.
The full extent to which the world was ignoring