Ricardo Lamas Believes He Can Easily Finish Conor McGregor
After a disappointing decision loss to current featherweight champion Jose Aldo in 2013, former title challenger Ricardo “The Bully” Lamas put his name right back into title contention with a first round submission win over the then-surging Dennis Bermudez at UFC 180 last month.
Now back to winning ways, it looks as if Lamas has his eyes set on another contender, and it so happens to be Irish superstar Conor McGregor, a fighter whom everyone seems to be gunning for:
“I don’t hate the guy. I don’t have anything against the guy, but every single reporter asks me about him so I’m like, ‘You know what? I want to stop the talk. I don’t want to be asked about him anymore. Let’s have a fight.”
“The Bully” will have to wait some time to get that fight, however, as McGregor is slated to take on No. 10-ranked Dennis Siver at UFC Fight Night 59 on January 18, 2015 in Boston. Many believe that this is a squash match for “The Notorious” and that the UFC is babying him to a title shot, and Lamas feels the same way:
“I do think the UFC is matching him up with people that play well into his style,” Lamas told The Roman Show. “They match him up with strikers. They don’t match him up with anybody who’s really going to pressure him and take him down. I don’t think he has any wrestling. I think that’s the one hole in his game that everybody needs to see. As soon as he fights a good wrestler everybody’s going to see that. I want it to be me.
I want to be the one to put an end to this whole thing and to quiet him down and to humble him.”
Despite McGregor being booked for an upcoming fight, there is another featherweight contender who has his eyes set on a bout with Lamas. Former No. 1 contender Chad “Money” Mendes has also called out “The Bully”.” Mendes is coming off of a loss in a five-round thriller with Aldo, so a bout with Lamas could make sense.
However, the brash trash talk of McGregor seems to have Lamas more interested in fighting the Irish star than Mendes:
“If you’ve got two guys who want to fight you, one’s calling you ‘the P word’ and the other’s like, ‘Hey, you wanna fight?’ Who are you gonna want to fight? Of course, the guy that’s talking all the crap.”
As for what’s next for “The Bully,” we currently don’t know, but when asked how he would compete in a rematch against Aldo, a bout with top contender Frankie Edgar, or a fight with McGregor, Lamas seems to be most confident against Dublin’s trash talker:
“I feel like I’d be able to finish him, easily. But he is a dangerous fighter. He throws a lot of flashy moves. A lot of stuff that you don’t really see coming.”
It’s hard to say that McGregor wouldn’t get a title shot with a win over Siver, but a bout with Lamas would be very interesting. We would finally get to see how “The Notorious” deals with a wrestling-based fighter.
Would you like to see “The Bully” try to take out the Irish phenom?
