"And new, undisputed UFC Featherweight Champion, 'the Notorious' Conor McGregor" - Bruce Buffer.
After a little less than three years in the UFC, seven fights, six knockouts, one torn ACL, endless media, an interim belt and countless records broken along the way. Conor McGregor is now the unified and undisputed UFC Featherweight Champion. He did it by beating Jose Aldo, in a thirteen second fight which resulted in the former champion being sent to sleep after taking a vicious counter left hook. The left was followed up by a couple of hammer fists before referee John McCarthy pushed the Irishman off the unconscious Brazilian, bringing a fight that had been over a year in the making to a swift end.
Like most people, I began following Conor McGregor in 2013, I had become addicted to MMA a couple of months prior to Conor's bout with Marcus Brimage, when my Brother Eoin called me in to the sitting room to show me Uriah Hall knocking out Adam Cella with a spinning back kick on the seventeenth season of the Ultimate Fighter. My first experience of watching a Conor McGregor fight was in a bathroom stall in Terminal Two of Dublin Airport where I used to work in retail. I was in work at the time of the fight and had no other option to watch the fight in peace but to head to the toilets. My brother had shown me the MTV Documentary on McGregor a couple of weeks prior and I was instantly intrigued and was interested in seeing how he would get on in the UFC. I went off to the bathroom with my phone and was back moments later firmly aboard the McGregor bandwagon. A bandwagon which has led to many things including the creation of this website.
Conor posted this on Instagram just after the fight.
Fast forward to December 2015, Conor is now the undisputed UFC Champion, he dethroned one of the greatest, most dominant and highly regarded Champions the UFC and Mixed Martial Arts has ever seen. A cold calculated fighter who has been unbeaten for over ten years, Jose Aldo, and he did it in only thirteen seconds. Aldo had decisively beat every fighter that was put in front of him in his UFC and WEC Career. A fighter who was streets ahead of the whole division. Renowned for his flawless game and vicious Muai-Thai kicks. His reign has now come to a devastating end for the Brazilian who I would regard still as the greatest featherweight of all time. Now the question has to be asked. Whats next for Conor? Up until now, everything Conor did in the UFC was done in order for him to get his title shot against Jose Aldo. Now that it is all said and done, where does Conor go from here?
To start, Conor is now in a position where few if any have ever found themselves before. In a little over two and a half years, a year of that time was spent on the sidelines inactive with a torn ACL injury, he has gone from relative obscurity to in his own words, "owning the game". He is the undisputed Featherweight Champion, has headlined two back to back and sold out MGM Grand Garden Arena shows, the second of which is the second biggest UFC gate of all time of $10.1 million dollars, a master of the media and has a loyal following of fans which has never been seen before in the UFC. It would seem he holds all the cards. His options are as follows. Stay at 145lbs, defend his belt against either Frankie Edgar, who following his knockout of Chad Mendes on Friday Night at the Ultimate Fighter Finale is the new number one contender or give Jose Aldo, the former champion the chance to regain his title and his pride in an immediate rematch. There is also the Lightweight option. Dana White in the Fox Sports Post Fight Show said that the winner of the fight between this Saturday's Lightweight Champion Rafael Dos Anjos and Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone is there for him should Conor decide he wants it.
As Conor puts it, all of them fights are good business. Personally I would love to see the Edgar fight. Beating Edgar would mean that there are no stones left unturned for Conor in the Featherweight Division. He will have cleaned it out from top to bottom and would set himself up nicely for the move to 155. Also as a fight fan, who wouldn't want to see that fight? Both fighters have cleared out the featherweight divisions top ten over the past eighteen months, both have aspirations to be belt holders in multiple UFC Divisions. I also would love to see how Conor carries himself leading up to that fight. Nearly every fighter over in the featherweight and lightweight division has suffered some form of verbal attack from Conor. Frankie is probably the only fighter who has gotten off lightly from Conor's mouth. How would Conor attempt to utilise his mental warfare against a fighter he has stated on the record many times that he has a lot of respect for. On paper, It would be an incredible fight.
However on the other hand, he just beat Jose Aldo who as I mentioned earlier is regarding by most including myself as the greatest featherweight fighter of all time and is one of, if not the greatest fighters of all time. What further verification if any does Conor need before moving up to lightweight? You can argue that his task at featherweight is now done, even without fighting the now number one contender Frankie Edgar. Also Conor is a huge featherweight, a reason you could argue was a defining factor in his success in that weight division. However that success comes at a price. The weight cutting process to get his body down to that size is a brutal one for him. His coach John Kavanagh told Dana White last night that he actually won't be making the cut down to 145lb anymore, especially now with the USADA ban on IV Rehydration. Conor moving up to 155lbs is sure to upset some in that division, particularly those like former Champion Anthony Pettis and Eddie Alvarez who fight in January in what his a number one contender fight, but like the featherweight division, a rising tide rises all boats. The lightweight division top ten is a murderers row of talented fighters, but right now it lacks the personality to really set the division aside from the others. An example of this is in the fact that the next lightweight title fight is happening on Fox, not Pay Per View. Neither Cowboy or Dos Anjos, despite their fighting resumes, have a proven record of success on Pay Per View. McGregor does and should he move up and attempt to be one of the few fighters to hold belts in different weight classes, it is clear that fight will not be on Fox, but perhaps another record breaking evening in the MGM Grand Garden Arena or dare I say it, in front of eighty thousand screaming fans in Croke Park.
Going forward it will be interesting to see how this all plays put. Prior to entering the UFC, Conor was a two weight champion in Cage Warriors. Belts he held at the same time. Now that he has the UFC Featherweight belt around his waist, Conor's goal is to be the first to hold and defend the featherweight and lightweight belts simultaneously. In the UFC, as a champion, you are required to be able to defend your belt. With the UFC holding 40+ events a year, including a pay per view nearly every month. The UFC needs their Champions to remain as active as possible. If Conor was to fight for the Lightweight Title, he would need to vacate his featherweight title so as to avoid long delays in fighters waiting around to fight a champion, who is too busy fighting for and defending a title in an another division. Conor stated in plain english last night at the post fight press conference that he would not be vacating the featherweight belt if he does decide to move up divisions. It is here we will see how much power and sway Conor actually holds with the top brass in Zuffa, the UFC's parent company. Will the UFC appease Conor based on his proven ability to generate serious income for the company? Or will Dana and Co dig their heels in and insist its either one or the other? Thankfully as a fan of the sport, any option that Conor goes with will be an exciting ones for me and fight fans alike.