UFC 205: Conor McGregor Makes History As He Wins UFC Lightweight Championship
UFC 205 just ended with UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor making history as he won the UFC Lightweight Championship to become the only fighter in UFC history to hold two championships at the same time in two different divisions. He would defeat then Lightweight Champ Eddie Alvarez by knockout in the second round after mostly a one-sided affair between the two fighters to take Alvarez’s title home with him to Ireland.
Eddie Alvarez was a capable champion who, while he came in as an underdog, was still a man who could beat McGregor. Due to his heavy wrestling ability, most expected Eddie to go on the ground more, but he curiously decided to stand with Conor. This very well may have lost him the fight, as Conor is a relatively good striker who managed to be on point the entire fight with every strike seemingly doing major damage.
To some, this seemed as if UFC was trying to pander and wanted to set Conor up for success this year once he began to get over with fans through his talking and big win over Jose Aldo last December. However, he has yet to defend his UFC Featherweight Championship since, which has ticked the entire division off. While history was made, many feel that Conor McGregor’s lack of defending his Featherweight Title does sort of put an asterisk next to the win.
UFC President Dana White mentioned in interviews before the fight began that Conor cannot lock up two divisions, so he will end up having to choose which title he will end up defending going forward. That said, one of the championships Conor McGregor holds will be taken away from him simply because they need to have two champions for two divisions of course.
No one knows what is next for Conor McGregor, perhaps even he doesn’t know. However, UFC is trying to make sure they give us super fights as often as they can. With Conor being their top guy, they’ll continue to set him up with other stars to make more money with him. Now that McGregor is the champion of two divisions, one would imagine that his next fight would at least be a defense of one them. We will have to wait and see which he will decide upon, so don’t get too used to the idea of a defense.
What does this mean for Conor McGregor and his place in UFC history? Obviously it puts him up with some of the greatest to ever live. He has clearly proven he can beat people with great ability. He managed to do the unthinkable, and work in three different weight classes in the span of a year. He would also win two different titles in the span of a year. Both things are pretty big to be fair to McGregor.
While as of now we have no clue what the PPV numbers are, many expect the event to draw big money. UFC put together a huge card that included three title fights, all of which were amazing, with two going five rounds. There was some controversy in the Welterweight Championship match-up, but the Strawweight Title fight was certainly in the hands of the champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk, but the challenger Karolina Kowalkiewicz proved a worthy challenger, who we very well could see for a long time.
We could say that Conor McGregor was not the only reason this event sold out or that it did amazing buys at the end of the day. However, we can say that he has drawn a lot of money for the UFC in various fights on various cards and has prove his worth exponentially. The fans love him and the UFC knows they have a star for years to come. The only real criticism for Conor has nothing to do with his fighting ability. It has everything to with the fact that he isn’t defending a title when he wins it. Hopefully he does that in the future.
[Featured Image By The UFC]
