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Conor McGregor
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On March 13, 2018 By In Mixed Martial Arts

Making Sense of McGregor

“If you’ve been a fan of this sport long enough, you’ve no doubt tried to spread the gospel of violence to friends and family. You convince them to watch a fight with you, show them highlight videos on YouTube to get them excited for it and hope for the magic of the sport to reveal itself come fight time. If you can’t make them diehard fans, at least you can turn them into casual appreciators of an otherwise off-putting sport. When it works, it’s great. When it flops, it’s a specific kind of shame, an embarrassment that feels less like bad luck than an indictment of your character.

The worst time that happened to me was when Mirko Filipovic fought Gabriel Gonzaga for the at UFC 70. After hyping “Cro Cop” to my friends for weeks and subjecting them to dozens of head-kick compilation videos, he went out and got demolished in ironic and ignominious fashion, suffering the same fate he had dished out countless times prior. For my friends, that was their introduction to “Cro Cop,” and it stuck. No matter how many old fights I showed them, it couldn’t supplant the experience of watching him become irrelevant in real time.

I’ve thought of that moment a lot lately as I’ve watched Conor McGregor — the first simultaneous two-division titleholder in Ultimate Fighting Championship history — gradually devolve into a Twitter troll…”

 

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On November 15, 2016 By In Mixed Martial Arts

Politics, UFC 205, and What it Means to Fight

“There’s a common phenomenon that coincides with every Conor McGregor fight: Friends and family members who otherwise don’t care about MMA whatsoever suddenly ask me questions about “the fights this weekend.” The questions generally boil down to “Who is McGregor’s opponent?” and “Is McGregor going to win?” It’s a testament to how broad the Irishman’s reach has become.

At this point it’s hard to deny that everything feels bigger with McGregor. I’m not only talking about the verifiable things — the gate records, the pay-per-view buys, the paychecks — but also the general, abstract feeling. A McGregor event reliably evokes an air that it’s something more than just a fight card. It’s The McGregor Fight; it’s bigger than it actually is.

This whole week was like that, sort of. While the mood surrounding UFC 205 on Saturday was that of an excited largeness, with the full velocity of a historical venue and a legitimately stacked card behind it, the atmosphere of the week leading up to it was one of pensive sobriety. The presidential election concluded, finally, and people retreated back into whatever it was they felt about the results. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of responses to the outcome, from gloating to rioting, there was a feeling that we were all collectively experiencing something larger than just another presidential election. It was a nationwide hangover following an especially toxic election season…”

 

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On November 12, 2016 By In Mixed Martial Arts

UFC 205 Statistical Matchup Analysis: Eddie Alvarez vs. Conor McGregor

“The Big One has finally arrived. After years of red tape, the Ultimate Fighting Championship will make its long-anticipated debut at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, as UFC 205 “Alvarez vs. McGregor” goes down in New York.

Accounting for one half of the headlining bout is Conor McGregor, the biggest star in the sport. After claiming the featherweight title in December, McGregor has stayed busy in other divisions in 2016, splitting a pair of fights at welterweight against Nate Diaz. He last stepped foot in the cage in August, when he rebounded from the first UFC loss of his career to take a five-round decision against Diaz in what is alleged to be the biggest event in the promotion’s history. This will be the second time preparing for a lightweight title fight, but it will be the first time he actually gets a shot to make history as the first fighter to simultaneously hold UFC titles in two weight classes. This is McGregor’s third fight of 2016.

Standing between McGregor and history is lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. He is no stranger to the pressure of precedent, as he became the first fighter to win championships in both Bellator MMA and the UFC. Though he dropped his UFC debut against Donald Cerrone, Alvarez is currently riding a three-fight winning streak, with each victory coming against a former major organizational champion. He was last in action in July, when he punched the belt off of then-champ Rafael dos Anjos in the first round. This, his first title defense and third fight of the year, will no doubt be the biggest bout of his long, storied career.

There is a lot to dissect, so let us see what the Tale of the Tape has to say…”

 

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On August 22, 2016 By In Mixed Martial Arts

Mixed Martial Artistry

“All great art is narrative in some way. Not that a piece of art needs to tell a story in order to be great, but what truly distinguishes something is its place in a larger context. While good art of any sort can be defined by the immediacy of its aesthetic, great art exists in narrative crosshairs that make it representative of something bigger than itself. It’s why classic paintings can capture a period of history as much as any account of facts or why our favorite songs tend to be the ones that bring us back to specific moments from our lives; they’re intertwined with the things going on around them in a fundamental, inseparable way.

By any metric, Nate Diaz-Conor McGregor 2 at UFC 202 on Saturday was great art. It was a perfect blend of what we love about this sport, and it couldn’t have happened at a more perfect time…”

 

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On August 19, 2016 By In Mixed Martial Arts

Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz Statistical Analysis

“The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s most marketable rivalry will finally get its second breath.

After a superlative 2015 campaign, the outspoken Conor McGregor entered his March showdown with Nate Diaz with an aura of destiny. At that point, McGregor was undefeated in the UFC and had not tasted defeat since an early career submission loss in 2010. After the Irishman tapped to a rear-naked choke from Diaz, the rematch was booked for UFC 200, but a maelstrom of drama surrounding press obligations and faux-retirement unfolded, pushing it back until now. This will be McGregor’s second fight above 145 pounds and his second fight of 2016.

On the other side of cage at UFC 202 on Saturday in Las Vegas will be longtime MMA antihero and cult favorite Diaz, who notched the most important win of his career when he throttled McGregor at UFC 196. Since then, he has become a bona fide star in the sport. The winner of “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 5 has nearly a decade of UFC fights under his belt, as well as stints in World Extreme Cagefighting and a one-off Strikeforce bout, making him a true veteran of the sport. Diaz is 3-3 in the UFC fighting above lightweight, and this will be his second fight of the year.

There are a lot of narrative and stylistic threads running through this fight, so let us see what the Tale of the Tape says…”

 

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