Mystic Mac strikes again as Conor McGregor rules in Las Vegas
The early hours of Sunday morning in Sin City were another reminder, if ever a fresh one were needed, that this is a town that will keep on keeping on. As men and women wrapped in Tricolours, and not yet thinking of the trek back across the Atlantic, traipsed through the MGM Grand high on Vegas and victory, those of us who had to settle for plain old sobriety couldn’t help but notice that the place was already progressing.
Here in the desert, the big thing is always the next thing. So it was, that on the huge digital poster boards listing what’s on in its preeminent mega casino’s Garden Arena, UFC194 was no longer highlighted.
The next two events were front and centre.
With the Crue and Bublé, the city is moving on, then. But what of the sport that has called this place home for so long now, namely the sport of combat? It cannot simply move on from Saturday.
You couldn’t escape the sense that this was a night that separated combat sports into the then and the now. After this, its leading man would seem to decide when and where the fight game moves on.
Conor McGregor is that man. He probably was that man before UFC 194 was brought to an astonishing close. But in 13 staggering seconds here, McGregor left the world in no doubt.
It wasn’t quite what he had done — won an undisputed world title two and a half years after first entering the organisation. It wasn’t quite how quickly he had done it — in the flash of an eye, breaking all previous records. It wasn’t even who he had done it to — Jose Aldo Junior, an iconic champion who hadn’t been beaten in a decade of utter dominance. Instead it was how he did it — exactly as he had said he would.
“Mystic Mac strikes again,” smiled the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s new unified featherweight champion, the gold belt that had only ever adorned Aldo’s body draped over his shoulder. “If you can see it, and have the courage enough to speak it, it will happen. I see these shots, I see the sequences and I don’t shy away from them.
“A lot of the time people believe in certain things but they keep it to themselves, they don’t put it out there.” McGregor puts it out there — all of it. For 14 months of marathon build-up to this defining night, he put everything out there. In the early part of the promotional tour, he did so in terms that quickly proved tiresome.
He would tone things down significantly as battle neared. Yet, throughout, his forecasts remained the same.
He predicted an early end — it came. He predicted a knock-out — it too came. He predicted that movement would be key — it was. He predicted that Aldo’s urge to use his favoured fist would be his downfall — it was.
He predicted that his own favoured fist would again be the ultimate decider — it most certainly was.
“I said his right hand would get into trouble, he would overload on his right hand. I said I’d stop and land the left hook and that’s what happened,” said the 27-year-old in his post-fight press conference as outside, armies of Irish supporters streamed off into the Las Vegas night, content that huge prices paid for tickets to a 13-second spectacle was money well spent.
“I have always been fascinated by movement. I always look at people who can move in unusual ways and have complete control of their frame. They have control over their mind.” The man known as ‘The Notorious’ has complete control over a lot more than his mind. You couldn’t help but notice McGregor had been kept back while the other victorious fighters of this, the third of three nights of huge fights during the UFC’s biggest weekend, had fulfilled media obligations.
After they stepped off, the 27-year-old stepped up and stood at the dais and commanded all he surveyed, reeling off gate receipt totals and pay-per-view targets as though he were Dana White, the omnipresent, all-powerful president of the “fastest growing sport in the world”.
So much power now lies with McGregor. What he does with it will be fascinating.
“I’ve put in a hell of a lot of work this year, it’s been a crazy, crazy, year for me,” he reflected on a 12-month period in which he has fought three times, won three times and raked in a small fortune.
“I’m looking forward to going home and building a Christmas tree with my girlfriend and spending time with my family and eating good, good food. Things change and things grow in the fight game.
“These hooks appear and we capitalise, that is what we do here at the UFC.” A half hour earlier McGregor had capitalised on what will undoubtedly go down as the most grave misstep of Jose Aldo’s illustrious career as a mixed martial artist. The 29-year-old Brazilian, the only featherweight champion in the UFC’s history, hadn’t tasted defeat in a decade.
Ten years unbeaten, yet just over 10 seconds in, in a bout that his rival had said would be all about movement, he stepped forward into a trap. McGregor’s left hook never wavered. His fist, his forearm, stayed strong and true, almost striking through Aldo’s chin.
The ageing king, as McGregor had depicted him in the build-up, never looked this frail. He was to ship two more blows before referee John McCarthy intervened. Chaos reigned in a vaunted cathedral of combat. McGregor wheeled around the octagon and soon came back to the man whose world he’d just caved in. Words were exchanged but Aldo hardly heard them.
“There was a lot of stuff said, what I said was look, we can go again,” McGregor revealed in a post-fight conference that was gracious, grateful, at times even eloquent.
“It’s a nice feeling [the knockout]. But you don’t want to see the only champion in the company’s history going out like that. I had a little moment where I felt sorry for Jose. It’s been a long road and I appreciate that he showed up here. I’ve no doubt there were options to pull out and this time he stuck around. I just said we can do it again but he was off in his own world. They were [probably] still resentful and bitter. Like I said, winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners.”
And after this night, and those 13 seconds, the world now focuses on McGregor like never before. His next step shapes to be unmissable. Don’t blink.
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