Reigning UFC featherweight champion the “Notorious” Conor McGregor is coming off of his first Octagon loss at the hands of Nate Diaz in a welterweight bout at last March’s UFC 196 from Las Vegas, Nevada. McGregor, a prolific knockout artist, was submitted in the second round by Diaz. All three of the Irishman’s career losses
Reigning UFC featherweight champion the “Notorious” Conor McGregor is coming off of his first Octagon loss at the hands of Nate Diaz in a welterweight bout at last March’s UFC 196 from Las Vegas, Nevada.
McGregor, a prolific knockout artist, was submitted in the second round by Diaz. All three of the Irishman’s career losses have come by way of submission, and his grappling skills have been highly criticized in the past.
In a recent twitter squabble, Diaz even referred to him as a ‘white belt’, although he’s technically a brown belt under his head coach John Kavanagh.
Diaz isn’t the only one to take a shot at McGregor, however, as reigning lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos recently got in on the fun as well.
Dos Anjos was originally set to defend his 155-pound title against the “Notorious” one at UFC 196, but he was forced to withdraw with an injury.
Apparently the bad blood hasn’t settled between the two, and dos Anjos took to his official Instagram account today (May 5, 2016) to bash McGregor for apparently tying his jiu-jitsu belt incorrectly:
If you know what the Internet is, you’re probably aware of the bizarre, impromptu Twitter tirade that UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor went on earlier today. Aside from the odd call-and-response exchanges in which “Notorious” partook with various fans (discussing his myriad UFC records and PPV sales), the majority of his rant focused on his analysis of
If you know what the Internet is, you’re probably aware of the bizarre, impromptu Twitter tirade that UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor went on earlier today.
Aside from the odd call-and-response exchanges in which “Notorious” partook with various fans (discussing his myriad UFC records and PPV sales), the majority of his rant focused on his analysis of his UFC 196 fight with Nate Diaz and getting his point across that UFC fans worldwide “will all see [what happens next time].”
McGregor’s vast and influential social media reach inevitably fell on attentive ears; ears that belong to his now-archnemesis Nate Diaz. In the past few months leading up to their first meeting and consistently since then, McGregor and Diaz have had some astonishingly entertaining Twitter encounters, generally beginning with the Irishman making some kind of absurd, pie-in-the-sky claim and ending with a swift, short, and to-the-point response from Diaz.
This one, dear readers, was no different; possibly even the best yet. After McGregor’s lengthy and sporadic diatribe defending his performance and attacking Diaz’s at UFC 196, Diaz cooly, calmly and hilariously responded with this Tweet:
McGregor and Diaz were originally slated to meet in their welterweight non-title rematch at UFC 200 on July 9; however, due to the audacious Irishman’s refusal to participate in all mandatory promotional obligations, the fight was scrapped from the card all together, and UFC President Dana White has insisted that his next fight will be in defense of his 145-pound strap against the winner of Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar at the aforementioned UFC 200.
In the words of Conor McGregor himself, ‘your move’.
After a self-imposed ‘retirement’ of two days and his removal off the biggest card of the year, outraged UFC superstar Conor McGregor took his spat with his employers to an all-new level today (Mon., May 2, 2015) when he unleashed a vicious Twitter tirade that had heads turning (and laughing) everywhere. Perhaps one of the
After a self-imposed ‘retirement’ of two days and his removal off the biggest card of the year, outraged UFC superstar Conor McGregor took his spat with his employers to an all-new level today (Mon., May 2, 2015) when he unleashed a vicious Twitter tirade that had heads turning (and laughing) everywhere.
Perhaps one of the most noteworthy quotes that may have gotten lost in the tirade, which appears to possibly be losing ‘The Notorous’ some fans online, was that after suggesting ‘no one gave a f*ck’ about UFC 200’s lineup, he told a fan he had the card heading for legendary status by supposedly approaching May 2015’s awaited boxing match between all-time greats Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao:
I do not. I had the May/Pac record primed, ready to place MMA at the undisputed top. But it was not to be. #Presshttps://t.co/rmCxw6DX7y
Another fan then stated that UFC 100 holds the record for pay-per-view (PPV) buys with a largely accepted 1.6 million in 2009, but McGregor also refute that by stating he had beat that number by 400,000 buys for his highly watched loss to Nate Diaz at UFC 196 in March:
I do not. I had the May/Pac record primed, ready to place MMA at the undisputed top. But it was not to be. #Presshttps://t.co/rmCxw6DX7y
Finally McGregor ended his eye-peeling rant with the scintillating suggestion that because of his unwillingness to leave his training camp in Iceland to be at press events Stateside, he had actually stirred up way more press in process; a view that’s tough to argue with:
With an absolutely monstrous amount of speculation, hype, and arguing going on over featherweight champion Conor McGregor’s ‘retirement’ and unceremonious removal from his feature rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 200, it’s hard to decipher exactly why ‘The Notorious’ has stirred up the drama he has. The most obvious surface reason would be money, but
With an absolutely monstrous amount of speculation, hype, and arguing going on over featherweight champion Conor McGregor’s ‘retirement’ and unceremonious removal from his feature rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 200, it’s hard to decipher exactly why ‘The Notorious’ has stirred up the drama he has.
The most obvious surface reason would be money, but UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta recently begged the question as to why a fighter making $10 million for his next bout would cause problems. McGregor has insisted that he needs to get back to the roots of his once-arduous training after getting mercilessly submitted by Diaz at March’s UFC 196, and he cited that as the reason he couldn’t attend the initial round of promotional press conferences for UFC 200.
However, regardless of the validity of his stance or not, many believe that McGregor was exposed against Diaz and is headed for a big fall, so he’s looking to make as big a payday as possible for a fight he most likely won’t win. One such believer in that theory is top-ranked lightweight Eddie Alvarez, who will take on champion Rafael dos Anjos in the first card of the UFC’s jam-packed weekend that will cap off July’s International Fight Week in Las Vegas.
Alvarez revealed a simple gameplan to beat McGregor prior to Diaz’ win over McGregor, and it involved taking the Irishman to the mat and submitting him as his opponents had done in his prior two losses. Speaking up to MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Alvarez reiterated the step-to-step focus of his plan:
“The secret I was talking about is just taking the guy down, dumping him on his head, and then submitting him.”
As for Diaz’ prior win over McGregor, Alvarez insisted McGregor wasn’t ready for the bigger, rangier boxer after facing much smaller competition at his usual home of featherweight:
“Nate has a reach, and I think everybody was so up on Conor, and Nate just has this, he has a weirdly long, long reach, and it’s difficult to deal with,” Alvarez said. “Unless you have guys in front of you who are 6’, 6’2″ boxers throwing punches at you, it’s hard to prepare in that way. He’s sort of an awkward opponent to deal with, and you need the right guys in front of you to deal with that. Conor just couldn’t adjust.”
And while McGregor may have been submitted in his perceived area of weakness on the ground, he also appeared to gas in the second round to open up the way for Diaz to lock on a fight-ending choke. After witnessing the outspoken superstar fade, Alvarez doesn’t believe McGregor will be a championship fighter because he doesn’t have the stamina for more than two rounds:
“And to be honest with you, Conor’s a one-or-two-round fighter,” Alvarez said. “He’s not a championship fighter, you know what I mean? He’s a one-or-two-round guy. He’ll be a lifer, I think, in three-rounders. If he ever decides to do five-rounders or go past to five, I think most of his fights are going to look like that. He’s going to take a dump.”
Finally, even though Diaz vs. McGregor II is off UFC 200 (for now at least), McGregor insisted earlier today that ‘no one gives a f*ck about these other fights’ as he prompted the UFC to ‘run it back,’ so a rematch could go down sometime shortly thereafter; perhaps either at UFC 201 or 202 later this year. If and when that does happen, Alvarez is picking Diaz to win once again as many have already predicted him to do:
“Oh, yeah [I’m expecting Diaz to win again],” Alvarez said. “Look, Conor couldn’t even win for two rounds. If he has to deal with any amount of adversity, how’s he going to end up winning? He was beating the sh*t out of Nate. If you can’t win for two rounds, how are you going to be in a fight with Nate Diaz? He was winning. He was beating the sh*t out of him. And he couldn’t keep up with his own winning. That was odd to me.”
In all of the recent chaos of featherweight champ Conor McGregor’s ‘retirement’ and UFC-imposed withdrawal from his scheduled rematch with ate Diaz in the main event of July 9’s UFC 200, UFC President Dana White has largely kept things professional by insisting the promotion’s relationship with ‘The Notorious’ is still strong. While that may not
In all of the recent chaos of featherweight champ Conor McGregor’s ‘retirement’ and UFC-imposed withdrawal from his scheduled rematch with ate Diaz in the main event of July 9’s UFC 200, UFC President Dana White has largely kept things professional by insisting the promotion’s relationship with ‘The Notorious’ is still strong.
While that may not be what we’re accustomed to from the normally outspoken White, there have been some rumblings in the MMA world that it wasn’t his idea to pull the ultra-popular McGregor from the historic card. Supposedly that call came from UFC co-owner and Las Vegas icon Lorenzo Fertitta, and he apparently revealed a bit of discord with McGregor in a recent conversation with longtime UFC referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy.
McCarthy stated on his “Let’s Get It On” podcast that he spoke with Fertitta backstage at last weekend’s (Sat., April 23, 2015) UFC 197, and the prominent exec was surprised that a fighter making so much money was actually giving him problems:
“I talked to Lorenzo Fertitta at UFC 197, standing in the back, and we started talking. He said, ‘I never thought that when I had a guy who was guaranteed ten million dollars I would have a problem with him.”
It could be a great point from Fertitta, who’s understandably focused on McGregor’s pay, the first fighter to ever receive a flat $1,000,000 purse for his loss to Diaz this March and countless other millions in pay-per-view (PPV) revenue and endorsements.
McGregor has routinely said his decision to skip the UFC 200 press conferences is not about his profits but rather his need to get back to training full-time in order to beat a bigger opponent. However, that’s just part of the game, and he had no problem spouting off at every single presser when he was knocking out smaller fighters in rapid succession.
He rapidly rose to the position of MMA’s biggest drawing star, yet the UFC’s owner is miffed that he is a headache given his already sky-high paydays. This is a situation that’s unlikely to go away anytime soon, but perhaps ‘The Notorious’ would be rise to keep his employer happy.
Do you believe he should, or are you happy a fighter finally stood up to the world’s foremost MMA promotion in a big way?
Following a week of back-and-forth drama, it’s safe to say that the ongoing feud between the UFC and recently ‘un-retired’ UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor has reached a fever pitch, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t somehow be taken to an all-new level tomorrow. The drawn-out saga has many twists, turns, and details,
Following a week of back-and-forth drama, it’s safe to say that the ongoing feud between the UFC and recently ‘un-retired’ UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor has reached a fever pitch, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t somehow be taken to an all-new level tomorrow.
The drawn-out saga has many twists, turns, and details, but in an effort to save you, our faithful readers, some time, let’s break it down in a (short as possible) nutshell: McGregor retired online last Tuesday, Dana White responded that McGregor was pulled off of UFC 200 and his rematch with Nate Diaz after he had refused to fly to Las Vegas for last Friday’s press conference, ‘The Notorious’ then tweeted he had worked it out with his employers yesterday, to which White responded that no such thing had been worked out, and McGregor ultimately remains off the card as it now stands.
He could most certainly end up on the card, as it’s been reported that having McGregor on the massive card would provide an economic boom totaling as much as $45 million according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, but it looks like the UFC is standing their ground on this one in an effort to no longer let ‘The Notorious’ call the shots. He’s certainly done plenty of that to this point, and it could also be argued that his desire and ability to do so is what got him in this sticky situation in the first place, as his move up a weight class to face lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos ultimately resulted in him facing and losing to late replacement Nate Diaz at UFC 196.
We’ll apparently find out if the UFC is truly booting him off of UFC 200 tonight, as MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani tweeted that fans looking to buy tickets for UFC 200 tomorrow (Wed., April 27, 2016) wouldn’t be forced to do so without knowing the main event:
It could be McGregor vs. Diaz back on the card, yet it could just as easily or even more easily be Daniel Cormier vs. Jon Jones II for the light heavyweight gold. But regardless of what UFC 200’s main event actually ends up being, at the core of the issue, it would seem that both sides have their faults in this bordering-on pointless and contrite rivalry between the world’s biggest MMA promotion and its biggest star. Let’s take a look at both points of view.
