Is Conor McGregor The UFC’s Next Chael Sonnen?

Right now, Conor McGregor sits as the fourth best featherweight in the world, behind Frankie Edgar, Chad Mendes, and of course, Jose Aldo. McGregor has shown the world that he can fight with the best of them, but is he really deserving of his title shot at July’s awaited UFC 189?

As the UFC grows, the need for a ‘bad guy’ grows too. Chael Sonnen is no longer in the UFC, and the draw of his former character was lost. That was, until McGregor came around.

According to Mike Bohn of MMAjunkie.com, Dana White has very high aspirations for UFC 189:

“Ticket sales are all over the world for this fight; this is a featherweight fight and this thing is going to break the gate record in the United States.”

Whether people like the idea of McGregor receiving this title shot or not, the UFC is benefitting from it greatly. Despite Sonnen coming up short in his tries to win the middleweight title against Anderson Silva and light heavyweight title against Jon Jones, the guy raked in the money for the UFC. And the Irish savant is in the process of doing the exact same thing.

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It doesn’t matter if McGregor comes out of UFC 189 as the new featherweight champion – the guy has this mass appeal to him. The accent makes you want to listen to him, the attitude makes you laugh, and the confidence makes you believe he has the chance to beat any fighter on the entire planet.

McGregor is such a big draw, that not only did the UFC agree to do its first ever world press tour to promote this fight, but people are forgetting that Robbie Lawler is defending his welterweight belt against Rory MacDonald in the co-main event on the same night in Las Vegas.

I, for one, am very excited to see if McGregor has what it takes to beat Aldo. The meteoric rise of McGregor will continue to heights that none of us have ever seen if he takes the belt from Aldo.

But with the world’s No. 1-ranked pound-for-pound fighter ‘sure’ that ‘Notorious’ is scared, we could be in for a historic battle for the ages. That is, hopefully we are.

Photo Credit: Jason Silva-USA TODAY Sports