The MMA thread

Raoul said:
One big takeaway from last night is how desperate the UFC are for personalities who can draw more people in. They've lost much of that with the likes of Lesnar, Anderson Silva, GSP, Jon Jones no longer in the mix and are almost lopsidedly relying on McGregor to carry their water for them. If it continues this way, they will almost certainly lose viewership in events where they don't have the likes of McGregor performing, and will probably be incentivized to draw more fighters who can do a bit of WWE style trash talking to hype up fights.
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Yeah, it's not the first time that you point that out and you are right, I liked Gunnar Nelson attitude, he was simple.
I still like McGregor, he is fun.
 
Anderson's Cat said:
The first UFC fight I've seen, so I'm pretty clueless. That Mendez lad seemed like nothing more than a glorified wrestler. His only tactic was to pin McGregor to the ground and wear him out with his elbows.
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It's his base, when you are in danger you go with what your good at, that said he is quite good on his feet normally, but he was getting destroyed everytime they threw hands, his only choice was to take McGregor down.

I think the lack of a proper camp and those body shots just sapped his stamina, when they stood up after the failed submission he didn't look like had shit left in the tank before that left even landed.
 
LilRicky said:
Of course, but it's always been said of McGregor regarding his ground game and defence.

Look he won at the end of the day, I just don't think it was in anyway great or even particularly good a performance. There are obvious reasons of course, that Aldo injury fecked everything up for both fighters.
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It wasn't great at all. But to be fair, if any man manages to beat Mendes who is world class, then it has to be a good performance.
 
KiD MoYeS said:
Do some of you still doubt McGregor now? Or has he proven himself at this level?
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He's proven he has the weaknesses everyone suspected he had but also that he is strong enough in other areas to compensate for it. It doesn't really matter how he did it though, beating Mendes after breezing past everyone else proves he's the real deal, at least in terms of being a genuine and worthy contender.
 
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Great picture.
 
KiD MoYeS said:
Do some of you still doubt McGregor now? Or has he proven himself at this level?
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He's definitely proven himself at a top level now. Any lesser fighter would've probably gotten ground and pounded out by Chad in the 2nd round. He balances his talk with action, that's for sure.
 
Still buzzing here to be honest lads, one of the best sporting weekends in recent memory. Bastian Schweinsteiger and Conor McGregor. Wow.
 
Plus now we still have McGregor v Aldo to look forward to as well. Gonna be massive.
 
Nucks said:
The problem with Anderson is who he fought. Who DID he fight? The MW division during Andersons reign was awful. It was AWFUL. Look at who he fought. Other than a couple of names, it's a bunch of guys who you wouldn't think twice about.

Compare that to Jones. When the MW division was one of the weakest, the LHW division was one of the strongest if not the strongest. Jones is directly, DIRECTLY, responsible for a shift in this metric in recent times. Jones cleaned the LHW division out and many guys who were former contenders at LHW have gone to MW. Now MW is one of the strongest divisions and LHW has become a bit of a wasteland, partially because Jones chased many of them away, and partially because many of them are past it.
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I think that's all hindsight though. Because at the time the guys he was beating were all considered the top guys of the division. And his age as well, he was well over 30 when he was doing such crazy things in the octagon. I personally feel like Jones is the best to do it, but cannot go without mentioning Anderson.
 
Raoul said:
He's definitely proven himself at a top level now. Any lesser fighter would've probably gotten ground and pounded out by Chad in the 2nd round. He balances his talk with action, that's for sure.
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If he can improve his wrestling, which I think he will do significantly with a good camp, then he'll be around the top of that division for a long time. Mendes, Edgar, Oliveira, Holloway and McGregor should out on some great fights over the next few years.
 
shabz said:
I think that's all hindsight though. Because at the time the guys he was beating were all considered the top guys of the division. And his age as well, he was well over 30 when he was doing such crazy things in the octagon. I personally feel like Jones is the best to do it, but cannot go without mentioning Anderson.
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Hendo and maybe Sonnen (and that's a stretch) are really only the top fighters he defended against. Sonnen should have beat him. Franklin was finished. The likes of Irvin and Lutter shouldn't have been in the Octogan with him. Maia was too small. Belfort I suppose was a good win.
 
Name Changed said:
Mendes was pure class after the fight. As was McGregor to be fair.
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Yeah, I liked Mendes prior to the fight and felt he'd beat Aldo the third time of asking had he won last night. I have a pretty high opinion of him now after how he responded last night. I think most fighters have been respectful to Conor after fighting him, Siver and Poirier were both very complementary to him also after losing, and this was with a lot of trash talking and animosity before the actual fights.
 
Just watched the event again, they should called it UFC 189: Kneed I Say More.

Amazing card. Everyone is taking about the main event but the whole main card plus Matt Brown prelim were totally awesome.
 
They have their work cut out attempting to top 189 now... They'll stack the Aldo vs. McGregor card, it's gonna be unbelievable.
 
PhilipB said:
What a guy. Anyway I accept Mendes cardio issue, anything else about striking etc is a load of balls. Conor had a plan, executed the plan, and won. Mendes' shots didnt phase him even a little bit. Both sides can make excuses but there is still only one winner, and he won in style.
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I can't agree with that at all. There's no way his plan was to spend the fight on his back, give up his back, and get his face cut up and bloodied. He barely stayed alive through two rounds, realized he was behind and would have to win by knockout.
 
Americano said:
I can't agree with that at all. There's no way his plan was to spend the fight on his back, give up his back, and get his face cut up and bloodied. He barely stayed alive through two rounds, realized he was behind and would have to win by knockout.
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I might have been, Mendes was tanked anyway
 
Nonsense, he may have been on his back for most of the 2nd and did take a couple of heavy elbows but he was always talking through it. He was never in trouble.

Unlike Mendes who was visibly hurt a few times in the 1st and then went for broke to try and win it because he wasn't looking forward to standing up and receiving more punishment at the start of the 3rd.
 
Mendes was clearly gassed (short camp etc), otherwise he wouldn't have been so flippant after getting up prior to Conor's two excellent shots.
 
Having two weeks to prepare for a new opponent is very different having two weeks to prepare for a fight. Mendes probably knew pre-fight that he wouldn't have the tank to go further than three rounds but the lure of the money (the actual cash, not his nick name) was too much so he tried submitting Conor when he knew he was about to run on empty and when that failed, his game was up.
 
Dirty Schwein said:
Having two weeks to prepare for a new opponent is very different having two weeks to prepare for a fight. Mendes probably knew pre-fight that he wouldn't have the tank to go further than three rounds but the lure of the money (the actual cash, not his nick name) was too much so he tried submitting Conor when he knew he was about to run on empty and when that failed, his game was up.
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I think he was just a sacrificial lamb for UFC's McGregor hype project. So much had been put into hyping up the Aldo fight that Dana and Co couldn't have delayed McGregor fighting and just went with Lawler/MacDonald as the main event. Hence the "interim championship' etc.
 
Americano said:
I can't agree with that at all. There's no way his plan was to spend the fight on his back, give up his back, and get his face cut up and bloodied. He barely stayed alive through two rounds, realized he was behind and would have to win by knockout.
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What a load of bollocks, fecking hell.

So his plan to attack Mendes's body to kill his cardio didn't work? Tell me, who gassed in this fight? The only question is how much was Mendes's cardio affected before the fight, and how much damage did McGregor's persistant teep kicks, and other body shots do

In regards to being on his back, Conor looked very comfortable being there. He kept closed guard, scrambled very well, and escaped the submission as good as anyone and won by KO.
 
I've re-watched the fight, McGregor did better than I remembered to be honest. He was consistently hurting Mendes from the start.
 
PhilipB said:
Mendes was a sacrificial lamb? You were saying before this fight if McGregor beat him he'd deserve the shot at Aldo etc.

I give up, can't have a reasonable debate about Conor at all with a lot of you.

Sacrificial lamb :lol:
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As in, they had to pony up an opponent to protect their event. Alternatively, Dana and Lorenzo could've moved the fight to the next UFC when Aldo would be ready to fight, but they had already invested too much hype into this event and needed the PPV yield to be realized. If it was anyone other than Conor, they could've easily moved this to 191 in early Sep.
 
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