I'm a Conor hater but this post is r****ded. What do you mean by same size? They both weighed the same less than 48 hours ago and Alvarez was the king of the 155 division. You make it sound like you knew what the outcome would be. Nobody predicted Conor would dominate the way he did. Not you, not the bookies and not even his most annoying nuthugger which he has way too many of. Aside from Khabib...Alvarez is the the 2nd best wrestler/grappler in the division. Many predicted Alvarez would take Conor down with ease, stay on top and wear out his gas tank since Conor's cardio and takedown defense were 2 of his biggest weaknesses.
Conor is a baaaaaaad man. It's rare you get someone that talented in the cage and on the mic. GOAT. Also, this just goes to show you how tough Nate Diaz is. He took about 100 of those punches that folded Aldo, Alvarez.
When I say "same size" I'm saying not going back to Featherweight. You say nobody predicted it, but I did. Styles make fights. Despite the fact that you say Alvarez is the 2nd best wrestler/grappler in the division you fail to understand that his wrestling is almost completely defensive. He's no good at takedowns....and it showed. Since Alvarez only uses his wrestling defensively, it made it a kickboxing match and McGregor is the superior strker AND he has a 5 inch reach advantage. Now if Alvarez was competent at taking opponents down, sure, he'd have been able to take him down, stay on top, and wear out his gas tank.....but anyone who pays attention knows that while Alvarez has amazing takedown DEFENSE, he's not any good at taking opponents down.
No, Dana White picked it because it was a VERY favorable matchup for McGregor and would build the hype even beyond where it was at to begin with. It was a business decision. When you put McGregor up against someone who is only a striker and McGregor has a 5 inch reach advantage, he's usually going to win. Hopefully the UFC picks a better fight next time.
Only a striker? Alvarez is pretty well known for having good/great wrestling. Conor stuffed him easily the few times he went for a take down. EDIT: nvm -- you explained yourself in your previous post. You can ignore this.
He's well known for having good/great DEFENSIVE wrestling. As I pointed out earlier, Alvarez only has a 29% takedown success rate....that's not his game. He uses his DEFENSIVE wrestling to set up his striking game, always has. Of course a defensive wrestling game is pointless against someone like Conor.
Going into the fight and watching Alvarez's previous bouts, he's always been a bit chinny with incredible recovery after getting rocked. He reminds of a LW version of Wanderlei Silva during his PRIDE run. I remember Silva getting dropped a lot but being able to recover almost instantly after being rocked. Conor won't pursue these matchups since there's not as much money to them but a bout against Khabib or Edson Barboza would be entertaining for different reasons. Purely from a striking standpoint I don't think there's anyone better at it than Barboza. I would love to see that standup match up between him and Conor for that very reason. A bout vs Khabib would be entertaining due to the clash of styles. I personally consider Khabib the real king at LW. Not even Conor's performance last night was as dominant as Khabib's was on the same card IMO.
He is just going to pull a Mayweather(Mayweather is this guy's hero) and run nomad in the UFC. Going to chase the money and not the fights. Smartest fighter in the business. He has it figured out.
You would think the UFC would have figured this out along time ago. So many potential super fights that never happened. Some times you have to throw the rankings out the window and go with the fight that going to make the most money.
I still can't believe how underpaid those guys are. Some undercard UFC guys make about 4k take home after loss. Insane with the amount of training it takes just to get in the building.
But not insane when you compare it to how little they'd be paid elsewhere. As the sport grows, they'll make more and more money. They aren't THAT far removed from the sport being illegal in 49 states.