UFC 229: Khabib vs. McGregor (10/6/2018) - Las Vegas, NV (T-Mobile Arena)

[evilwaldo]

1 hour ago, Oyaji said:

Exactly how I see it playing out too. Maybe a token suspension for Khabib of 6 months where he doesn't really miss any actual time on top of the fines.

I'm interested to see where they go next with Conor. I think his aura takes a huge hit if he loses his next fight and a third meeting with Diaz is a coin toss. I watched the main event again with some family members last night and was relatively impressed with Conor's gas tank. He didn't look nearly as bad in that fight as he did in the first Diaz fight and while it makes sense to create that fight now, it's a little risky.

Conor's aura is already dead.  He milked his title wins into not fighting MMA for two years while getting everyone to believe his is a tough guy.  The tough guy got clowned and shown to be little more than a loud mouthed bully.

I said it before, Conor takes a can as his next fight to get some of the aura back.  If he goes straight for the rematch, he becomes Chael 2.0 when he loses.  If he loses to Diaz, count his career as over.

Khabib gets a slap on the wrist and the UFC books him with Ferguson.  Conor gets a slightly bigger punishment for inciting everything.  I would not be surprised if there is a phone call between Dana and the NSAC regarding the UFC becoming what they said they did not want to be.  Basically, the job of the NSAC is not to hand out punishments for you.

Khabib-Ferguson

Conor-can

Then UFC can book Khabib-Conor 2.

[AxB]

Are you saying Ferguson doesn't have any chance at all?

[Elsalvajeloco]

I don't buy into aura being easily penetrated when it comes to the biggest stars. This show is going to be the biggest event in UFC history in terms of PPV buys and revenue. That's fresh off Conor looking amateurish in a boxing match whether it was against the greatest pure boxer of his generation or not. When your star power depends directly on your zero in the loss column or your near zero or this certain presentation , it hurts a lot because you never crossed the threshold as a real superstar.

The two best examples are the dudes fighting each this upcoming Saturday in Fedor and Chael Sonnen. At the end of the day, Fedor not fighting in the UFC was more crippling than the UFC not having him. If Fedor would have won a few UFC fights and challenged for the belt, he would have been more insulated from losing and the resulting scrutiny, whether it was justified or not. Dariusz Michalczewski never coming across the pond to fight Roy Jones Jr. hurts his legacy moreso than Roy hurting his legacy failing a couple PED tests and other politics deading legacy defining bouts based on him having that HBO deal.

Chael could have had another moment in the sun if he had won one of those fights with Anderson. However, it was clear his brush with superstardom was over when the TRT stuff started up and the UFC really kinda pushed him down the card save for the Shogun fight. People bought into Conor BEFORE he became psycho Conor McGregor and the PPV and TV numbers back that up. Chael Sonnen was around almost ten goddamn years before people really took notice of him. The backlash against Anderson Silva who was invincible and showed no one could even touch him  to the point where it was a kid playing with his dinner opened a space for Chael to be this American Gangster character. As fake and hokey as Chael was and became, that part was extremely organic. The issue is he became too problematic getting into fights with Wanderlei at MMA expos and meet and greets and flunking drug tests. You can't have that when your only natural money opponent has beat you twice with last one being extremely convincing. He became his own greatest enemy. On his own, he wasn't a superstar. Thus, it made it extremely easy for him to be let go. Chael was basically the equivalent of a monster heel in the late 80s and early 90s for Hogan and just kept making more demands and asking for more money way after his time to feud with Hogan passed. I think once Ronda and Conor came around and Chael decided to dial back the xenophobic and white supremacist tone of his material and go full pro wrestler, he became extremely irrelevant to all but the folks who have been watching MMA. The current iteration of Chael Sonnen is not bringing in new fans. Thus, he's perfect for the current Bellator vision. Now him at however old he is being one of their three biggest stars is also problematic but also an entirely different conversation.

McGregor is now Tyson levels of insulated where his mouth and persona are more magnetic than what he can actually do in the cage. His fights are going to draw no matter what until the next big thing comes around and he inevitably fades away. That's the story of combat sports in a nutshell. Every fight isn't going to be record breaking numbers but in a short while, the UFC won't need it to be. The UFC is going to milk this cow dry just like Arum did with Pacquiao and King did with Tyson.

[evilwaldo]

 

35 minutes ago, AxB said:

Are you saying Ferguson doesn't have any chance at all?

When did I say that?

[AxB]

52 minutes ago, evilwaldo said:

Khabib-Ferguson

Conor-can

Then UFC can book Khabib-Conor 2.

I took this to mean that you assumed that Khabib beats Ferguson 10 times out of 10. If El Cucuy beats Khabib for the belt, and Conor wins a gimme fight, they'd give Conor a title shot against Ferguson long before they'd sentence him to fight Khabib again, right?

[Elsalvajeloco]

I wanna see Ferguson vs. Gaethje so bad even though I know it's going to result in Justin Gaethje taking way too much punishment. I seen Trevor Wittman pull Verno Phillips out of a world title fight but I wouldn't expect him to do it the way Duke Roufus did it last Saturday night for Anthony Pettis. Something tells me Justin would never let that happen.

[evilwaldo]

1 hour ago, AxB said:

I took this to mean that you assumed that Khabib beats Ferguson 10 times out of 10. If El Cucuy beats Khabib for the belt, and Conor wins a gimme fight, they'd give Conor a title shot against Ferguson long before they'd sentence him to fight Khabib again, right?

Yeah.  Why make one fight when you can make three or four and milk it for a couple of years.

I highly doubt Conor goes back to get crushed again immediately.  If he does, people will move on to The Next Big Thing!!!  Our society has a short-term attention span.  Once you show that you cannot win they jump off the bandwagon so fast the local hospital emergency room overflows with ankle injuries.  There is nothing so special about Conor that will hold him in the public's arms for a decade if he cannot win.

[Elsalvajeloco]

58 minutes ago, evilwaldo said:

There is nothing so special about Conor that will hold him in the public's arms for a decade if he cannot win.

1. If there was nothing so special about Conor, he wouldn't be that big of a draw anyway.

2. I don't think MMA is structured in a way for him to be fighting another ten years at the highest level anyway, but if Paramount still has hitched their wagon to Bellator, he can become a TV draw for them in a way that keeps their business from slipping all the way under. That Pacquiao vs. Horn fight drawing that TV rating in the morning stateside was something that wasn't suppose to happen given where Manny is in his career. And Conor is way more charismatic than Manny Pacquiao and the Irish travel to his fights more than the Filipino fanbase for Manny ever did. It took Manny five or six years and countless top opponents to do what Conor did in sixteen months with no good opponents except Holloway who no one knew really. When Manny was having those fights in Macau, they were depending on those high rollers to come out and not his fanbase in his home country. Bellator is making a play for the UK and Ireland now and started their office there just a week or so ago. So even if Conor plays out as a PPV draw and UFC cuts bait...he's going to draw big numbers on TV and sell out arenas in Ireland. So if Conor does great PPV numbers for the next 2-3 years and then becomes a TV draw for the remainder of his career, that's still the longest unbroken/sustained run in MMA history at this level.

3. The UFC is a little over two months away from entering an entirely new arena where they won't be the top dog since WWE was on Spike. Who knows what that forces the UFC to do and what Endeavor has to change as far as their business model? If UFC has a great stretch, the UFC worrying about the public caring about Conor's win loss record is going to be irrelevant. I think Top Rank had a pretty good first year with ESPN because boxing has an oversaturation problem but not with the amount of fights on TV on any given card. They only have 3 or 4 fights on TV at most. But the reason why the ratings have fallen somewhat is one injury to like a Vasyl Lomachenko or one bad showing like Gilberto Ramirez had forces you to put unproven fighters in those slots and push guys harder than you were planning to. For example, when Danny O'Connor had a bad weight cut and Jose Ramirez couldn't defend his belt, they had to go with Egidijus Kavaliauskas vs. Juan Carlos Abreu as a main event on ESPN. If you're not a boxing fan, that's worse than I would say 60% of the current UFC on FS1 main events where you have late injury replacements or thrown together fights in comparison. That's the thing. UFC's bench is WAYYYYY deeper than Top Rank's bench. With DAZN going hard in the paint right now, Top Rank boxing on ESPN NEEDS Crawford and Lomachenko and the Kovalev vs. Eleider Alvarez rematch HBO rejected. UFC can do a good TV rating with Paige VanZant and Sage Northcutt. 

[DreamBroken]

I still love Conor's entrance at projecting his aura with the special/big time feel, The Foggy Dew intro is great.

[TheVileOne]

Ferguson shouldn't accept any fight except a fight for a title next.

[The Natural]

Khabib Nurmagomedov, who was congratulated by Putin for real after his win, said that whatever punishment he gets in Nevada will be nothing compared to the punishment he'll get from his father. His father was quoted in the Russian media saying, "You can do whatever you want in the Octagon, outside of it, there's children, women, random people. My team has always been known for its discipline. Hence my sanctions to Khabib will be much stronger than the ones from UFC."

Taken from f4wonline.com

[Elsalvajeloco]

8 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

Ferguson shouldn't accept any fight except a fight for a title next.

Ferguson is going to do whatever the UFC tells him to goddamn do.

Because he pulled out of that 223 fight at the absolutely wrong time and he's not a draw, he virtually has no leverage.

[hammerva]

5 hours ago, The Natural said:

Khabib Nurmagomedov, who was congratulated by Putin for real after his win, said that whatever punishment he gets in Nevada will be nothing compared to the punishment he'll get from his father. His father was quoted in the Russian media saying, "You can do whatever you want in the Octagon, outside of it, there's children, women, random people. My team has always been known for its discipline. Hence my sanctions to Khabib will be much stronger than the ones from UFC."

Taken from f4wonline.com

 

Well by that standard he could slap him in the back of the head and that would be stronger than the UFC 

[J.T.]

Well, that was something.

I understand why Khabib did what he did, but that was still monumentally stupid.  You've just fought brilliantly and successfully defended your title.  Why the fuck are you attacking some nobody during a sanctioned event?  Conor's bad behavior probably cost him millions and now it's Khabib's turn to pay up.

I don't think that Dana will strip Khabib of the title.  There is far too much money in the spectacle of a rematch between McGregor and Khabib.  I don't think that Tony Ferguson should fight for anything less than the belt, but I seriously believe Khabib / McGregor II will happen before Tony gets a title shot.

Aspen Ladd scares the living shit out of me.  What a monster she is.

[Guest Edwin]

Khabib's dad says he forgives Conor and they will forgive and forget.

[J.T.]

I have to hand it to Conor.  At least he isn't an ignorant bigot.  

Using the word "rat" specifically to insult Khabib is not only a religious slur (ex.  Allah has set men above the beast as Allah is above man so equating a Muslim human being to vermin is a grave insult), but it also ties in to the racist political cartoons popping up in European newspapers equating the current Muslim immigrant crisis to a swarm of rats infesting civilized society.

If you are going to pluck a nerve, pluck a sensitive one.

[AxB]

10 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

Ferguson shouldn't accept any fight except a fight for a title next.

He could always fight Nate Diaz for the unrecognised 165 lb title.

[OSJ]

5 minutes ago, J.T. said:

I have to hand it to Conor.  At least he isn't an ignorant bigot.  

Using the word "rat" specifically to insult Khabib is not only a religious slur (ex.  Allah has set men above the beast as Allah is above man so equating a Muslim human being to vermin is a grave insult), but it also ties in to the racist political cartoons popping up in European newspapers equating the current Muslim immigrant crisis to a swarm of rats infesting civilized society.

If you are going to pluck a nerve, pluck a sensitive one.

No, if you look at all the things Conor has said to Khabib, he's a bigot who has really done his research so he can be just as nasty as possible. As I've stated many times, he's an embarrassment to the Irish people. My biggest disappointment is that Khabib didn't pull his head off and throw it to the crowd. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on. Pushing Conor has helped UFC become the very thing they always tried to avoid, just another carny freakshow.

[supremebve]

17 minutes ago, OSJ said:

No, if you look at all the things Conor has said to Khabib, he's a bigot who has really done his research so he can be just as nasty as possible. As I've stated many times, he's an embarrassment to the Irish people. My biggest disappointment is that Khabib didn't pull his head off and throw it to the crowd. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on. Pushing Conor has helped UFC become the very thing they always tried to avoid, just another carny freakshow.

Rat is deliberately terrible, and referring to him as backward is just as bad.  It is a way to diminish people who live their lives based on religious doctrine.  

[Elsalvajeloco]

On 10/4/2018 at 8:46 PM, Elsalvajeloco said:

Right now, I would say it falls a little short of the Mayweather vs. De La Hoya number (2.4 million). If something crazy happens at the weigh-ins, then all bets are off.

I don't get enough credit for being this smart.

[Thibs]

That Felice Herrig chick that fought and lost... went to high school with her. She used to work out in my gym. Scary girl. 

[The Natural]

[The Natural]

[AxB]

And they said Drake was a fairweather fan:

[kenyabaxterZXW]