At UFC 246, Conor McGregor made his return to the UFC, with his first fight since a fourth-round loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov in October 2018. Conor made quick work of Donald Cerrone, landing 19 strikes to zero, finishing him by TKO in 40 seconds.
Cowboy is a gatekeeper. You beat him, you’re a contender, you lose to him, you’re either a young prospect who isn’t there yet or just not good enough to compete for a title. So Connor proved he’s still a contender.
Now, whether or not he is good enough to win a title, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s a good first win for his comeback, but it requires a measured response. It wasn’t that risky of a fight for him, as Cerrone was a handpicked perfect opponent for Conor’s style. Plus, Cowboy always underperforms in big moments. Cerrone has now lost in the first round to McGregor, Rafael Dos Anjos, Justin Gaethje, Darren Till, and if he wasn’t saved by the bell, Jorge Masvidal.
In the fight itself, there really wasn’t much to learn from it. Conor’s shoulder strikes in the clinch were good, but Jon Jones has done it before. In the opening exchange, Cerrone went the wrong way after ducking a Conor jab. He then headed straight for McGregor’s opposite side leg and got kneed because of it. Later, Donald tried to perry a kick with both hands and wound up taking it on the chin. Being knocked down, it was all but over from there.
After the fight Cowboy said he didn’t expect Conor to come out as aggressively so quickly. Yet he always does. Conor starts fast, Cerrone starts slow, we all know that. So apparently the person least knowledgeable about this fight was Cowboy himself.
Cowboy is who he is. That’s what the fight told us. Cerrone is just not very good, and worse when the stakes are high. Also, Conor proved he’s still who he is. He isn’t old, past his prime, or too focused on other things outside the cage. He’s still a powerful, creative striker that seems to do better when the stakes are high.
So maybe Conor’s coaches were right and we now have a focused McGregor who is once again excited about fighting. I’ve always said the beauty of MMA is that it is reality. A boxer stops boxing, he’s no longer a boxer. A martial artist stops fighting, he’s still a martial artist. You can lose a title but they don’t take black belts away.
Conor had to learn that martial arts isn’t what you do, it’s who you are. And with a renewed desire and love of competing, he could be looking to go on a run. McGregor seems to need the motivation to fight. He likes having big stakes and the world doubting him. Well, at welterweight and lightweight, he’s an underdog for a lot of guys, which provides a nigh endless selection to pick from.
The obvious choice is Khabib Nurmagoedov, who is set to face Tony Ferguson for the title in April. Of course Dana White sees dollar signs and already wants to book the rematch. Talking about how big it would be, not about whether it’s deserved or not.
I know no one wants to see it, we all know it wouldn’t be deserved. So let’s relax on that. I’d only want to see Khabib rematch with Conor if Tony wins the belt. The issue for the UFC is Conor is too famous and demands too much money, and likely teeters on the edge of a title fight; would the competition go for a McGregor/Khabib rematch that wasn’t a title fight?
But Conor doesn’t deserve a title shot, not yet anyway. Plus, Khabib will fight in April and then take Ramadan off. So he’ll start training by early June, meaning the soonest he’ll fight again after a three-month camp is probably around September 2020. Conor didn’t get hit once, there’s no need for him to wait eight-plus months to fight again.
Haven’t heard this discussed much, but wouldn’t mind Conor versus Khabib-lite, in other words, Islam Makhachev. He and Khabib are friends and training partners, they’re both have similar styles, being tough grapplers from Dagestan. There would be good drama and Islam is an opponent that has climbed up the ranks at lightweight and deserves a big-name opponent.
After Islam’s proposed bout with Kevin Lee fell through, Lee is now taking on Charles Oliveira instead. Makhachev makes some sense and needs someone to fight. The winner of Lee vs. Oliviera wouldn’t be bad for Conor either. Hell, at 155, the winner of Dan Hooker and Paul Felder would be good. As both men have two-fight win streaks, the winner will be at three in a row.
I have nothing against Conor and there are dozens of guys I’d like to see him square up against across multiple weight classes. But I don’t want his antics to get in the way of what other fighters are already doing. He has been mentioned in bouts with Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal, potentially fighting for the welterweight title or the BMF title.
Yes, these would be interesting fights that would attract a lot of attention and present challenges for Conor. But that’s a given for any McGregor bout at this point. Conor shouldn’t look to fight Usman and hold up the division. The two most deserving in the welterweight division for a title shot are Jorge Masvidal and Leon Edwards. Since Edwards is set to face Tyron Woodley, just let Usman and Masvidal fight for the 170 crown.
If Conor is going to stay at welterweight and wants to fight for a belt of some kind next, a name he threw out himself several months back is Stephen Thompson for the supposed NMF belt. While few would consider Conor one of the “nicest mofos in the game,” I still like the matchup.
Thompson is a striker, so Conor won’t have to worry about it going to the ground. They both have a more traditional bladed karate stance and like to dart in and out of range. Plus, Stephen is a former title challenger. It would be a really fun bout.
If McGregor beats Thompson he’ll arguably be deserving of the winner of Usman and Masvidal without even needing to worry about Khabib; he could legitimately be the champ at three weight classes without anything having to be gifted to him by Dana “Conor was never my friend” White.
Another former welterweight title challenger, with name recognition, that would be fun is fellow trash talker Colby Covington. He just lost to Usman after basically wiping out the division and is in need of a new opponent.
Prior to the Cerrone bout, it was explicitly stated that it was a 155-pound fight, where both competitors didn’t need to cut weight. Conor’s true intentions were to earn a rematch with Khabib and recapture the lightweight title. If that’s true, a rematch with the last man to face Nurmagomedov, Dustin Poirier, would work too. The two men faced off at featherweight years earlier, with Conor winning by first-round KO. Poirier has stated publicly he’d like to run that back at lightweight.
Of course the obvious choice and the more deserving choice at lightweight is Justin Gaethje, who I personally don’t feel actually deserves a title shot anyway. I’m on Dana’s side here in the sense that he needs to keep fighting. Sure he got three wins in a row, all first-round knockouts, but Gaethje beat three very beatable guys.
Gaethje knocked out James Vick, who just got KO’d another three more times. He beat Edson Barbosa, who has lost four of his last five and is moving down in weight class. And he knocked out Cerrone, a man we just saw get beat in 40 seconds.
Instead of waiting around for money bouts or title shots, Gaethje should take another fight. The winner of Khabib/Tony might not fight again until September. Gaethje’s last fight was in September of 2019, he can’t just wait around for more than a year.
Plus, McGregor is the biggest name he could get. It’s a win-win for both guys. For Gaethje, it provides another potential high-profile win over a former champ and it’d be his fourth in a row; thereby cementing him as the number one contender. If Conor wins, he’ll deserve the lightweight title fight.
Conor’s coach, John Kavanagh, even said he wants McGregor to face Gaethje next. Oddly, he also said he wants it to be at 170. But Gaethje at welterweight doesn’t make much sense. The only reason Conor would keep his options open at welterweight is if he’s leaving the door open for Nate Diaz 3.
This, of course, is always a good fight, and the fans will love it. These are two fan favorites guaranteed to put on another spectacular show as they did the first two times. In fact, Conor even called out Nate at the end of his UFC 246 post-fight press conference. Maybe that was foreshadowing.
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