Well, as most of you have probably already heard, Conor McGregor wants to fight again. But haven’t we been hearing that for months now. Yes, his camp has said that he wants to fight again, plus he has even said it once or twice. But today is different, as he took to Twitter and Instagram saying this:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfgvR31Hu1i/
It looks like the lightweight champion (with zero defenses since winning the belt in 2016) offered to fill in for the injured Max Holloway at UFC 222. That means he was fit to fight Frankie Edgar on a few weeks notice. What about Tony Ferguson or Khabib Nurmagomedov? Nope, he’d rather have a shortened camp against a featherweight than possibly lose to the two best lightweights. Now, back to the social media post though. Thousands of replies were sent to McGregor regarding the tweet. Some people criticized while others praised the “champ champ” on his return. It is probably guaranteed that more than 90% of those that praised him are known as the casual MMA fans. What’s a casual fan you may ask? A casual fan is somebody that doesn’t know anything about the sport of MMA. The only thing they know is that their favorite fighter, most likely McGregor, is the greatest fighter to ever compete in combat sports, or at least in the UFC. Never mind Demetrious Johnson or Anderson Silva or Fedor Emelianenko, they probably don’t even know he they are. If they heard those names they would probably claim that McGregor can beat all of them. Let’s take a look at some of those replies sent to McGregor and reply to some of them as well.
The Replies:
#1:
— Rayao' (@UnRayao) February 22, 2018
Let’s start with this one. This isn’t somebody that praised McGregor and called him the GOAT. This is just a funny reply. Recently, Conor McGregor broke the UFC record for longest title reign without a title defense at 464 days. This guy decided to have a bit of fun and mock him about how long he’s been inactive in the UFC.
#2:
The GOAT.
— Daniel (@Danielmmafan) February 22, 2018
This single tweet will probably cover more than half of the replies sent to McGregor. Let’s go over everything that is wrong with this tweet. There is absolutely no way that McGregor is close to GOAT status at all. He has won two titles in two divisions, sure that’s good, but what has he done since then. He won the featherweight title, knocking out Jose Aldo in 13 seconds and then held the belt for a few moths.
During those few months, he was scheduled to fight then lightweight champion, Rafael dos Anjos. Instead, a couple weeks before the fight, dos Anjos pulled out and was replaced by Nate Diaz. He lost to Diaz by rear naked choke in the second round. His next fight was against Diaz once again at UFC 202. That fight went the distance, and McGregor barely won by majority decision. Oh, and all of this happened as he still held the belt down at 145. So that’s eight months now that we’ve covered with no title defenses at all, and also no injuries.
In November of 2016 he fought Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title and won the fight by knockout in the second round. The week after that, he was finally stripped of his featherweight title. Since being stripped, there were three title fights in the span of a year in the featherweight division. Meanwhile at 155, the belt has not been touched since McGregor won it at UFC 205. But that’s not because he’s been defeating every challenger thrown at him, it’s because he’s simply chosen not to fight anyone.
He fought Floyd Mayweather, good for him, but still nothing in the UFC. He clearly does not want to defend his belt most likely because of the thought of who sits at the top of the lightweight division. Tony Ferguson is the current interim champion who is on a ten fight winning streak. Then there’s Khabib Nurmagomedov, who just flat out mauls people and gives them no escape. The lightweight division is full of killers that would have a good chance at defeating McGregor. It’s probably the best division in the UFC, but hasn’t seen a legitimate title fight since November 2016. All that because casual fan’s so-called “GOAT” hasn’t wanted to step foot in the octagon.
He’s not the GOAT because he hasn’t defended a title and hasn’t seemed like he’s wanted to defend the title. While other champions have defended the title 10+ times (Demetrious Johnson, 11 and counting, and Anderson Silva, 10). So unless McGregor can defend his belt 10 times in a couple of years, he should and will never be in the discussion of the greatest of all time.
#3:
https://twitter.com/not2379/status/966767765628465153
This ones special, because here are two tweets that are hilarious. First the top one. This casual believes that if McGregor were to be scheduled against Frankie Edgar, Edgar would die. Now that is completely wrong because Frankie Edgar is one of the best to ever do it. He’s more suitable to be the GOAT than McGregor will ever be. If McGregor and Edgar were to fight, Edgar would have a very good chance at winning. Edgar is an outstanding wrestler that could probably take McGregor down with ease. McGregor probably has the worst ground game, and we know that thanks to Nate Diaz at UFC 196. If you look at what Edgar did to Yair Rodriguez at UFC 211, the same would probably happen to McGregor. McGregor wouldn’t be able to stop the take-downs and then would be mauled by Edgar’s ground and pound.
Now the second tweet is funny because McGregor really is not that good. His ground game is bad and have we really seen him against top notch competition. Yeah, Jose Aldo, Nate Diaz, and Eddie Alvarez are pretty good opponents, but he lost to Diaz once. We also only saw him against Aldo for 13 seconds, what would have happened if Aldo never rushed McGregor like he did during that fight. He’s never faced real good competition. If he had defended his belt multiple times at lightweight, he would have faced the likes of Tony Ferguson, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and maybe even Edson Barboza or Kevin Lee. Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov would be guaranteed to give him problems because they are two of the best lightweights ever. And Edson Barboza is probably the best striker in the division today, maybe even the UFC. Barboza also got demolished by Nurmagomedov, which really says something about “The Eagle”. Unless we see McGregor take on any of these guys, he hasn’t really proved that he is as good as people make him out to be.
#4:
— Carson Cunningham (@Carson_OKC) February 22, 2018
Let’s finish this off with another fun tweet. Just like this guy, we have all been waiting for McGregor to actually do something. He keeps talking like he’s gonna return and that he wants to fight, but does he really? If he really wants to fight, than why hasn’t he done anything yet? Instead what has he been doing? He’s been sitting out, calling out Floyd Mayweather for a rematch, but wait, he wants that rematch in the octagon. Big deal, no one cares about you and Mayweather’s rematch. What legit MMA fans care about is that you come defend your belt instead of constantly clogging the best division in the UFC. Once again, we’re all waiting, either for your return, or for you to finally confirm your retirement. We really wouldn’t mind if he chose the latter option.
