Conor McGregor Risked It All For Money At UFC 196, But It Might Not Matter

Now that the dust has finally settled on last weekend’s (Sat., March 5, 2016) insane UFC 196 from Las Vegas, the world’s foremost mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion can begin to pick up the shattered pieces of a landscape that seemingly changes dramatically with the passing of each and every blockbuster card.

Obviously the vast majority of the fallout is directed at UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor’s first UFC loss to Nate Diaz in the main event. The pivotal, hyped bout has been dissected, re-dissected, and examined under a million microscopes, so there’s no need to go into meticulous detail about what transpired in the wild affair.

Basically the quick summary of the fight was that after winning the first round and arguably the first portion of the second with several powerful punches, McGregor faded and was tagged by a vicious one-two combo from Diaz, who swarmed on a rocked ‘Notorious’ prior to absolutely demolishing him on the mat with a brutal rear-naked choke.

It was a devastating, bloody, and overall descriptive loss for the exploding fame and personality that is Conor McGregor, and indeed it will harm his UFC career path in more ways than one. But at the end of the day he deserves respect for being a true fighter who took a fight up two classes for the risk of a huge payday, which he said would be a massive $10 million when it was all said and done.

The outspoken Irishman has taken a hit to his perhaps overblown aura of invincibility, yet he took the loss like a true champion and is still that in the 145-pound division. With that said, there are some key reasons why the loss may or may not hurt his overall scope. Let’s take a look at both sides of the discussion.

4.) Why It Might – The Blueprint To Beat Him Now Seems Clear:

Possibly the worst hit McGregor took to his self-proclaimed persona as the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world was the fact that Diaz showed he could be beaten; and not only beaten, but destroyed without being in any serious danger overall.

What’s even worse is, while Diaz took a ton of powerful punches and was bloodied for it, he eventually turned the tables on McGregor with his own stinging, accurate punches. When it did go to the mat, it was McGregor that took it there out of desperation, and by then it became clear that Diaz had a mountainous gap of an edge on him in that area.

His critics always said wrestling and grappling were his weak points, namely after his UFC 189 win over Chad Mendes where ‘Money’ clearly outwrestled him for two rounds before gassing and being stopped by strikes. Ultimately Diaz is not a wrestler even though he has an elite mat game, so the truly elite wrestlers at both featherweight and lightweight will be thinking they can take out ‘The Notorious’ with relative ease in the near future. It’s on McGregor to prove that they can’t.

3.) Why It Might – His Pay-Per-View Drawing Power Could Decrease:

A second and perhaps more lasting hit McGregor may have taken from the loss is the damage it could do to his drawing power.

He’s still one of the UFC’s top stars and will command big attention whenever he fights. It’s just never easy to lose that feeling of invincibility that had him thinking he would move on to face welterweight champion Robbie Lawler at UFC 200. That seems like a fantasy at this point because he couldn’t beat Diaz, a usual lightweight.

‘The Notorious’ will most likely go forward into a rematch with old enemy Jose Aldo instead, and while it has a lot of backstory and animosity, it just won’t have near the appeal of their first fight when McGregor and Aldo were undefeated in the UFC and had destroyed everyone in their paths. They’ve both suffered brutal stoppage losses lately, and that’s going to result in less attention, buzz, hype,, and ultimately, buyrates for the rematch.

2.) Why It Might Not – He Fought Up Two Weight Classes & Admitted His Mistakes:

On the other side of the argument, McGregor might not lose much, if any, standing because he did fight up a remarkable two weight classes, an unheard of move by a UFC champion.

It seems as if that has been the automatic response from McGregor fans after he lost, but even though Diaz has four UFC fights at welterweight, he’s really a lightweight one class up from McGregor. Diaz last fought at 170 almost five years ago when he was demolished by title contender Rory MacDonald via unanimous decision, his second straight loss that sent him back to 155 pounds. And although MMA math rarely holds true, 155-pound champion Rafael dos Anjos also just demolished Diaz in 2014.

However, there’s one thing that’s going to get McGregor back in the game quickly and moving forward, and that’s how he’s handled the stoppage loss with the utmost class. The Irish champion has been nothing but brutally honest and open in painstakingly describing what went wrong against Diaz, and that is something you again also don’t see much of from fighters anymore. His introspective recap of the fight was certainly the opposite of the going into hiding before refusing to talk about fighting we’ve unfortunately witnessed from former women’s champion Ronda Rousey.

McGregor took a huge shot for a huge payday and got paid what will probably be one of the biggest purses in MMA history, and while he may be heartbroken, he also seems to be honest enough with himself to improve and bounce back stronger than he was.

That mindset will help McGregor bounce back strong in his weight class, and without much harm done from the loss to Diaz. He’ll still have to get some better training and improve his all-around skillset to stay at the top.

1.) Why It Might Not – Featherweight Is Probably His Best Division Anyway:

A final reason why the loss to Diaz might not be that impactful is that he may have found out that his best shot is certainly at featherweight overall. His original opponent at UFC 196 was dos Anjos, and while ‘Notorious’ may have had a better chance against ‘RDA’s smaller size, he could have been dominated like wrestling-deficient striker Anthony Pettis was.

The result may suggest that McGregor was looking ahead to bigger fights like Lawler and failing to acknowledge the threat Diaz turned out to be. Overall, if he can’t beat the No. 5 lightweight, then he probably can’t beat the 170-pound champion who has beat Carlos Condit, Rory MacDonald, and Johny Hendricks in his last three bouts.

Finding that out now and going back to the division he has proven he can dominate could very well be the best move that McGregor can currently make. The cut down to 145 has been increasingly more brutal on his body, so he could be a more natural lightweight at this point, but the time should also come for him to move back up a class. Ultimately, McGregor will fare better at featherweight and there are one or two huge fights left for him there.

We’ll have to see if he can return to dominating that division following his loss.