Tag: ufc 202

Conor McGregor Favored Against Tony Ferguson & Nate Diaz

Conor McGregor’s anticipated MMA return currently remains unknown during a time when the UFC needs him most. The most likely candidates are obviously interim champion Tony Ferguson and Nate Diaz, as “The Notorious” recently called out “El Cucuy” online while a third match-up with Diaz will always loom large as a massive financial windfall until […]

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Conor McGregor’s anticipated MMA return currently remains unknown during a time when the UFC needs him most.

The most likely candidates are obviously interim champion Tony Ferguson and Nate Diaz, as “The Notorious” recently called out “El Cucuy” online while a third match-up with Diaz will always loom large as a massive financial windfall until it inevitably happens.

McGregor could go either way for his next fight, or he could come out of left field with something else altogether. But Ferguson and Diaz are the most probable opponents for the UFC megastar, and online betting site Bovada (via Bloody Elbow) has released some early odds for both prospective bouts should they become a reality.

According to their early odds, McGregor is a favorite against both opponents, coming in at -165 versus the streaking +135 underdog Ferguson, who has won an unheard-of 10 straight fights in the deeply talented UFC lightweight division capped off by his latest interim title-sealing win over Kevin Lee at October 7’s UFC 216. Diaz, meanwhile, who hasn’t fought since he lost a close decision to McGregor at UFC 202, is a bigger underdog, rating at +195 to McGregor’s -250.

McGregor famously lost to Diaz via second-round submission in their historic first match at March 2016’s UFC 196, inciting arguably the most popular rivalry in MMA history. The rematch did even bigger numbers, but Diaz may have lost a bit of steam after staying out of action while McGregor signed onto and participated in his circus of a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather last August, which he ultimately lost by 10th-round TKO.

He’s also been reported to want upwards of $20-30 million for the fight, a figure even McGregor proclaimed may price him out of the fight.

The majority of hardcore MMA fans seem to want McGregor to finally defend his lightweight title against a true top contender, which Ferguson no doubt is as the interim champ. “The Notorious” has also teased he would defend the belt, which he has not done since winning his first UFC title in 2015, to “legitimize the rankings.”

Do you agree with the odds as they are now, or should Ferguson and Diaz be given more of a chance versus the Irish megastar?

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Tony Ferguson Calls Out Conor McGregor With Expletive-Filled Tirade

It wasn’t without a ton of adversity, but Tony Ferguson finally won the interim UFC lightweight championship by submitting rising young contender Kevin Lee with a third-round triangle choke in the main event of tonight’s (Sat., October 7, 2017) UFC 216 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. After the much bigger Lee was repeatedly […]

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It wasn’t without a ton of adversity, but Tony Ferguson finally won the interim UFC lightweight championship by submitting rising young contender Kevin Lee with a third-round triangle choke in the main event of tonight’s (Sat., October 7, 2017) UFC 216 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

After the much bigger Lee was repeatedly able to use his smothering wrestling to ground Ferguson in the early rounds, ‘The Motown Phenom’ began to tire just a little after a brutal and draining weight cut, and that gave ‘El Cucuy’ a window of opportunity to capitalize with his ultra-dangerous bottom game on the mat.

The definitive win put Ferguson’s win streak at an unprecedented 10 straight, and he understandably called out UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor in his post-fight interview with commentator Joe Rogan:

Ferguson was expectedly unhappy with McGregor’s inactivity as champion after he took the entire year off from MMA to fight Floyd Mayweather in the boxing ring. So he voiced his opinion on the subject with a blunt and to-the-point callout:

“Where you at, McNuggets, you fuckin’ piece of shit? I’m gonna kick your ass. You better fuckin’ come and defend that belt. Defend or vacate, motherfucker!”

Ferguson is certainly doing his part to get his massive fight with McGregor.

Many hardcore fans believe McGregor should finally defend a UFC belt, which he has not done since winning the featherweight title from Jose Aldo in December 2015 and the lightweight title from Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 last November.

The bout with Ferguson is a clear booking, but in today’s ‘money fight’-focused UFC landscape, McGregor’s oft-discussed trilogy bout with Nate Diaz could easily surpass Ferguson chance to unify the titles.

Which fight do you think should take place first?

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Disgraced: The 10 Worst Champions In UFC History

This weekend’s (Sat., October 7, 2017) UFC 216 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, features yet another interim title fight when Tony Ferguson takes on Kevin Lee for the second-place strap in the feature bout. And it’s not even the first time that the promotion has tried to make a placeholder title for […]

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This weekend’s (Sat., October 7, 2017) UFC 216 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, features yet another interim title fight when Tony Ferguson takes on Kevin Lee for the second-place strap in the feature bout.

And it’s not even the first time that the promotion has tried to make a placeholder title for the lightweight division that Conor McGregor has kept in limbo, as the promotion attempted to book Ferguson vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov back at March’s UFC 209 only to see it fall apart when ‘The Eagle’ couldn’t make weight. Add that to the interim light heavyweight, middleweight, and featherweight belts that have been essentially manufactured in the last year-and-a-half, and you can easily surmise why the UFC is having one of their worst years ever in terms of pay-per-view (PPV) sales in 2017.

But it’s not just the UFC’s fault; no, champions holding out for ‘money fights’ and just outright picking and choosing their match-ups has lead to an era where it’s just hard for new UFC owners WME-IMG to build any momentum, and the days when champions defended their belts successfully – and often – in order to build the necessary rapport to become big stars seem to be absent from the sport right now (other than Demetrious Johnson, and we’ve seen how that has worked out). Champions aren’t what they used to be, and whether it’s bad luck or MMA simply evolving to create more parity, a true superstar is tough to come by right now.

What’s apparently not, however, is a fly-by-night champ who fails to live up to the hype and circumstance that carrying the gold brings. While it seems easy to find such fighters throughout the last few years of MMA, there have also been some truly bad champs in the older days of the UFC as well. These fighters from the present or past had enough to get to the mountaintop, so they are or were elite, but they just didn’t deliver when they got there.

Check out our 10 worst champions in UFC history:

Holly Holm:

A decorated multi-time world boxing champion, Holm came to the octagon amidst a ton of fanfare in 2015. After two incredibly lackluster decision wins over Raquel Pennington and Marion Reneau, Holm went on to shock the world when she kicked Ronda Rousey into oblivion at November 2015’s UFC 193 from Australia.

The MMA world was suddenly her oyster, but instead of holding out for a rematch with Rousey that legitimately could have been the biggest fight in UFC history, ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ decided to make her first title defense against Miesha Tate at UFC 196 the following March. After a tentative, safe four rounds in a fight she was probably winning, Holm was choked unconscious in the fifth round after Tate took her down.

From there, Holm went on to lose a one-sided decision to recent title contender Valentina Shevchenko in her next fight, but she still got a title shot nevertheless when she met Germaine de Randamie for the featherweight title in one of the worst fights of the year at February’s UFC 208. She lost via controversial decision, but has since rebounded by knocking out an overrated and ineffective Bethe Correia this June.

She never made any title defenses and has lost three of her last four fights, but Holm us rumored to be facing Cris Cyborg for the featherweight belt in her next bout. Welcome to today’s UFC, ladies and gentlemen.

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Watch: Fan Throws Drink At Conor McGregor’s Face

Conor McGregor may be the most popular man in mixed martial arts (MMA) right now, but that didn’t stop him from getting a dose of backlash during his recent trip to Glasgow, Scotland. McGregor, who was in town for his “An Evening With Conor McGregor” interview with Caroline Pearce, apparently made his way to a […]

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Conor McGregor may be the most popular man in mixed martial arts (MMA) right now, but that didn’t stop him from getting a dose of backlash during his recent trip to Glasgow, Scotland.

McGregor, who was in town for his “An Evening With Conor McGregor” interview with Caroline Pearce, apparently made his way to a pub during his time in Scotland, where he sang a song supporting local soccer club Celtic F.C. of the Scottish Premiership.

That didn’t sit well with at least one fan, however, as McGregor was doused with a significant amount of liquid from a drink thrown at his head while he sang a song of support for Celtic F.C., who are in a heated rivalry with Rangers F.C. The fan who threw the drink at McGregor was allegedly a fan of Rangers F.C.

Watch McGregor get splashed toward the end of this video from UFC Related on Twitter (via MMA Mania):

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Conor McGregor Makes Brutal Prediction For Bisping vs. St-Pierre

The MMA community is currently anticipating just what Conor McGregor’s next move will be. On a weekend without a UFC or Bellator event, the “Notorious” UFC lightweight champion stoked that fire in a big way earlier this week. Opening up on a variety of options in his interview with Caroline Pearce at “An Evening With […]

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The MMA community is currently anticipating just what Conor McGregor’s next move will be.

On a weekend without a UFC or Bellator event, the “Notorious” UFC lightweight champion stoked that fire in a big way earlier this week. Opening up on a variety of options in his interview with Caroline Pearce at “An Evening With Conor McGregor” from Glasgow, McGregor proclaimed it was finally time to defend his title and that he would beat Floyd Mayweather in a rematch in the boxing ring.

Leaving all the doors open, McGregor also wouldn’t rule out his sometimes-discussed match-up with longtime former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, who will return to action after nearly four years off when he fights current UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping for the title in the main event of November 4’s UFC 217 from New York City.

So while defending his title is supposedly his top priority (we’ll have to wait and see if that holds true), the UFC’s only simultaneous two-division champ acknowledged St-Pierre could be a good option down the road. However, it may not matter according to the Irishman, who revealed in his interview (quotes via Peter Carroll of MMA Fighting) that he believes Michael Bisping will ‘whoop his a–‘ when they square off in a month’s time:

“It’s another money fight, even though he’s been retired,” he said. “I don’t know, I think he’s going to get his ass whooped by Bisping. To be honest I think it’s a mistake for him to step in at that weight after so long out.”

It’s definitely another “money fight” for the man who has made that term a reality during his meteoric rise to redefining how an MMA superstar picks his fights, regardless of if you believe it’s good or bad for the sport. Wanting only the biggest fights to close out his historic career himself, St-Pierre has been rumored to be planning on calling out “The Notorious” if he does get past Bisping.

Should the brash Irishman accept, or does he have too much on his schedule already?

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Conor McGregor Guarantees He’ll Defend World Title

There’s no doubting Conor McGregor’s status as by far the biggest name in MMA right now, but the “Notorious” Irishman is still being met with a large amount of criticism due to the fact he has yet to defend either one of his UFC titles. After winning the lightweight belt from Eddie Alvarez last November, McGregor […]

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There’s no doubting Conor McGregor’s status as by far the biggest name in MMA right now, but the “Notorious” Irishman is still being met with a large amount of criticism due to the fact he has yet to defend either one of his UFC titles.

After winning the lightweight belt from Eddie Alvarez last November, McGregor was of course stripped of his UFC featherweight title and then went on to take time off to welcome his son Conor Jr. into the world. An understandable and acceptable proposition to be sure, yet his absence from the MMA world was only enhanced by the fact that he spent the rest of 2017 chasing, getting, and participating in a circus-like boxing match with Floyd Mayweather, a bout he ultimately lost in the tenth round but made a record-breaking sum (for an MMA athlete) to participate in.

Now, McGregor has teased a trilogy bout with rival Nate Diaz when he does return to the octagon, a fight which Diaz has clearly been waiting – and demanding his own $20-30 million purse – for, and a fight that has hardcore MMA fans complaining about the legitimacy of their favorite sport. Diaz hasn’t fought since losing to McGregor at UFC 202 in 2016, and the UFC will hand out another interim belt when Tony Ferguson meets Kevin Lee for the placeholder title at McGregor’s lightweight roost.

The entire thing has made quite the mess in one of the UFC’s most storied divisions, and McGregor recently went so far as to acknowledge that to Caroline Pearce during “A Night With Conor McGregor” in Glasgow, Scotland (via MMA Fighting), insisting that he has to finally defend his belt and that it is important to him.

And with Diaz demanding a huge payday, it may just be against Ferguson or Lee, like the MMA world wants:

“Look, I’ve got the UFC title to defend and that means something to me. I will defend that world title.

“Nathan (Nate Diaz) is there. He’s trying to come in here and make all of these demands. If he starts pricing himself out of an event, I probably will defend against the person who wins this interim belt…or someone along that line to legitimize it again.”

With his self-declared goal to “get in, get rich, and get out,” the rags-to-riches Dubliner has certainly done that, and now he at least seems to think it’s finally time to defend one of his titles and legitimize the rankings, something that’s obviously lacking in today’s money-obsessed UFC:

“I’ve already gone from the highest of the high in terms of a money fight. Now the question I always get is about defending the belt and legitimizing the sport and the rankings. Maybe now it would be a good time for me to go and do that and shut that side up. I’ve done the money fight. I’ve done the pinnacle of a money fight – I fought for the money belt – the WBC money belt it was called.”

Indeed he has, and the time is most definitely right to finally defend a title – whether be it against Diaz or the winner of Ferguson vs. Lee. The UFC superstar acknowledged the merits of both fights and said he’ll wait to see the result of the October 7 interim bout:

“In my head now, I’m very interested in seeing this fight this weekend and to see how the lightweight title picture pans out and to go in and correct that whole situation. That’s where my thoughts are.

“I also have history with Nate. It’s 1-1 and that has to happen. It will happen. The more I spend time away from it, I think I’ve already done all of the money fights. Now, to legitimize a title and to bring it back, I could potentially bring it back. That’s a little bit exciting for me. I’ll see how this whole title picture plays out and we’ll go from there.”

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