Buckle in kids, this is going to be a long one! There's a TL;DR conclusion at the bottom.
As most who have posted here on the reg the past five or six years will know, I've never really bought into the Conor McGregor hype as much as some have.
I never really bought into the myth of "the big left hand." I found it absolutely ridiculous that some actually believed he'd trouble Floyd Mayweather much less actually beat him.
I've always seen McGregor as a borderline top 5 lightweight at best, and someone who has received more than any other fighter the benefit of preferential fight booking.
After his loss to Poirier, it's been all but confirmed. But it's always interesting to look at the facts. And the facts tell me that McGregor's biggest asset in his MMA career isn't the big left hand or his much-revered mental strength.
It was his ability to seemingly kill himself to reach 145lbs then rehydrate himself enough to compete the next day. He was and is incredibly well-versed in making and cutting weight.
Most of his career highlights come at 145lbs, where he went 7-0 with big wins over Aldo, Mendes, Poirier and Holloway.
It was here that his legendary punching power and ability to pick opponents off was born, but there's a reason for that in my opinion.
McGregor is 5'9 and has a reach of 74 inches.
Let's look at his 145lbs opponents:
Marcus Brimmage - 5'4 and 71 inch reach
Max Holloway - 5'11 and a shockingly t-rexesque 69 inch reach.
Diego Brandao - 5'7 and a 69 inch reach
Dustin Poirier - 5'9 and a 72 inch reach
Dennis Siver - 5'6 and 70 inch reach
Chad Mendes - 5'6 and a 66 inch reach
Jose Aldo - 5'7 and a 70 inch reach
McGregor was a huge featherweight. And I'm not saying this to diminish his accomplishment at the weight, because the truth is he made the weight every time and as such he's legit. But back then you could see that he towered over most of his opponents, and his reach was longer than every fighter he faced in the division.
That he went on to fight at welterweight and not look like he was carrying any extra fat as you may have expected from someone jumping up 25lbs tells its own story. Could you imagine if Jose Aldo made a move to 170lbs? Diego Brandao? Chad Mendes?
McGregor went into his 145lbs fights with huge physical advantages.
Two fights with Nate Diaz followed, both at welterweight with Diaz looking flabby around the middle. The dude is a top ten lightweight, and doesn't belong at 170lbs.
In both fights we were told all about the big left hand, the sniper-like finishing that Conor was capable of.
Despite not being a top five lightweight, never mind a proper welterweight, we saw Nate take those big shots and submit McGregor in the first, and lose a decision in the second.
The move to 155lbs was always going to be interesting, as it would tell us if his power and ability to pick men off would translate when facing opponents just as long, who had power, and who could take a shot from a bigger man.
And to be honest, the jury is still out on that. At 155lbs McGregor is 1-2, and while his win over Eddie Alvarez was a good one, I felt at the time he was the beneficiary of a bout against what could be considered the weaker of the recent lightweight champions. Even if McGregor hadn't come into the equation I didn't see Eddie reigning long.
I certainly did not favour McGregor to beat RDA, who he was originally scheduled to face. I had that fight pegged as ending up similar to the Khabib fight with RDA grinding McGregor down and eventually subbing him late into the fight.
Next up was Khabib, who at 5'10 and someone who walked around at over 170lbs normally was a fighter of similar stature to McGregor and someone who could likely fight at welterweight if they wanted to.
Again, the big left hand was touted. And again, we saw McGregor land clean but unlike the 145lbs opponents, the bigger man didn't crumple and fall. We even saw Khabib drop Conor.
He looked good once again at welterweight against Cerrone, but I think Cerrone is a washed up fighter at this stage. It was a good win, but nothing to boast about for any top five lightweight in the company. It's the kind of win you'd fully expect from any lightweight fighter ranked 5-7 or so.
And now we've seen Poirier beat Conor after once again the big left hand being touted. it didn't amount to much.
Conclusion: McGregor's power, size and reach haven't translated to a bigger weight class where his opponents are of equal or greater size. His ability to cut to 145lbs was insane, and it was that edge that saw him forge his reputation. But at lightweight he's just another guy with a decent amount of power, bog-standard non-US fighter levels of grappling, and a below average gas tank.
In short, he's probably going to flit around the top five or so at best.
I think he's dangerous when he faces anyone who is shorter in height and reach as it allows him to pick them apart from the outside, but there's less guys that applies to in the 155lbs division. Not to mention that 155lbs fighters are more able to take a decent shot than a 145lbs fighter.
That's two fights in Khabib and Dustin where everyone spoke of Conor being dangerous early and how him catching you clean meant curtains. Both times he caught his opponent clean early and both times fuck all happened. They took the shots and kept coming.
I only see Conor putting together a serious title run if he managed to drop back to 145lbs, and I don't know if he's even capable of that these days.
But, who would bet against him if he was facing the likes of the 5'6 Volkanovski? Or Brian Ortega? Or in a rematch with Holloway?
At 155lbs he's never getting anywhere near that title again, even with uncle Dana's preferential fight booking.
I guess to avoid the Tory thread becoming bogged down with non-Tory cunt talk a new general politics thread is in order since the last one was closed. I've seen it mentioned a few times elsewhere, but this Scottish SNP leadership storyline really is picking up steam, with the latest declaration coming from Ash Regan who claims that a vote for independence-backing parties at the next general election "is the same as a referendum". Basically, she believes that "we run each and every election, that would be general elections and Scottish elections, as a test of public opinion - a trigger point if you like" for Scottish independence. Personally, I think we're seeing the beginning of the end of the SNP as we know it. I know much focus has been on the GRR bill, but there truly is some questionable shit going on elsewhere that isn't really being given a lot of scrutiny in my opinion. That would include Sturgeon's husband, Peter Murrell's £107,000 loan to the SNP which led to multiple compliance issues. Parties are supposed to declare all loans of £7,500 or more within a 30 day window of the quarter in which they are paid, but the SNP failed to declare Murrell’s loan for a year. The SNP also hid Murrell's name in the accounts, saying the interest-free loan came from an unnamed “executive management”. Murrell has been running the SNP for 20 years! The party's treasurer quit, claiming he was not given enough information about finances to do his job, while three other members of the SNP's finance and audit committee also resigned. There's also the issue of the police investigation into an alleged £600,000 fraud case that saw some higher-ups in the SNP interviewed a few days before Sturgeon resigned. Sturgeon's husband, who is the SNP CEO, was the only person who had "complete oversight and control over all aspects of accounts, how any money was spent and, ultimately, all key decisions" apparently. And get this...he also has almost complete control over who replaces his wife at the top of the party. There has been demands for independent adjudicators to be brought in to oversee the leadership election process. So yeah, it definitely looks like Sturgeon was getting out of dodge before the ship finally sinks.