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Conor McGregor will take on #2 ranked featherweight Chad ‘Money’ Mendes for the UFC interim featherweight title at UFC 189 on Saturday night. In the biggest fight of his life, McGregor has arguably had the toughest fight week of his career.
After compiling an impressive 4-0 record in the UFC with devastating finishes of Marcus Brimage, Dustin Poirier and Denis Siver, McGregor earned a featherweight title shot against undisputed champion Jose Aldo at UFC 189.
Both McGregor and Aldo embarked on a multi-country world tour to promote their highly anticipated title fight which cost the UFC millions upon millions to market, with the trailer alone costing an estimated $1 million to make.
After months of interviews, conference calls, television appearances and press conferences, defending champion Jose Aldo withdrew from the fight on June 30 when it was confirmed that the champion would not be able to fight citing rib bruising.
The UFC decided to install Chad Mendes as Aldo’s replacement with the organisation also declaring that the main event would be for the interim title, with the view being that the winner would then face Aldo in a unification bout when the champ regains his health.
UFC president Dana White said the reason for the interim title, in this case, had to do with Aldo’s history of pulling out of title fights, despite having defended it only nine months earlier at UFC 179.
McGregor, who appeared to be bitter yet unphased by Aldo’s withdrawal, has had to deal with several obstacles in the build up to UFC 189 that are both in and out of his control.
Firstly, there is absolutely nothing that McGregor or coach John Kavanagh could do about Aldo’s withdrawal. Doctors had medically cleared Aldo to fight but if the champion does not believe that he will be ready to fight, then that is something that McGregor nor his camp can control.
Secondly, McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh has developed quite a reputation for being meticulous in the buildup to fights, and how could he not be? He has three of his fighters fighting on Saturday night but nevertheless, the turnaround time to prepare for Mendes has not been long, especially given the fact Kavanagh also has to prepare Gunnar Nelson and Cathal Pendred for their respective fights.
Mendes poses an equal if not bigger threat to derailing McGregor’s title aspirations given his superb wrestling and grappling skills and while McGregor will have a distinct advantage on the feet given his eight inch reach advantage, Mendes wrestling can not be discounted as we are yet to see McGregor truly fight off his back, such has been his dominance so far.
If McGregor should fail on Saturday night well then the blame should certainly not be put on coach Kavanagh, but there are several other factors that could contribute to a Mendes upset on Saturday night, most notably McGregor’s massive weight cut.
According to former UFC middleweight contender Chael Sonnen, who appeared on an episode of the Jim Rome Show to discuss UFC 189. Chael claims to have recently spoke to McGregor and was blown away by his size claiming the Irish challenger had told him he was about 172 pounds. That was last Thursday, meaning McGregor would have had to have lost 27 pounds in eight days – not impossible, but taxing nonetheless.
McGregor had a difficult weight cut against Denis Siver too but seemed to show no sign of weariness, dominating the German with a second round technical knockout. McGregor has proved in the past that he can recover well from immediate weight loss, but only time will tell if he’s able to make 145 pounds with the UFC weigh ins in just under seven hours.
Finally, McGregor has had to deal with the passing of 14-year-old Brendan McGlone who had developed a relationship with McGregor just before losing his battle with cancer earlier this week. McGregor had sought to bring out McGlone to Vegas to watch the fight, but the teenager’s deteriorating health had prevented the Tyrone boy from travelling.
McGregor was visibly upset in an interview with Off The Record’s Michael Landsberg and will have to put his grievances aside in order to make weight and perform on Saturday night.
Make no mistake, the opponent change, the long press run, the loss of McGlone and the weight cut are all manageable for McGregor and his team in the larger scheme of things, but there’s no denying that they are advantages to opponent Chad Mendes.
Mendes has been training for a little under a month now in preparation for McGregor and according to Alpha Male teammate Urijah Faber, Mendes relishes the shorter training camp as it is not as big of a drain on him physically.
Unlike McGregor, Mendes has a comparatively easy weight cut to make 145 pounds and will not be forced to lose a considerable amount of weight given that he walks around at 155 pounds. Given Mendes only has to lose 10 pounds to make weight, it allows him to devote a huge amount of time on preparation and it’s something that the Californian desperately needs given the short notice he took the fight on.
There might be a significant difference between the amount of preparation both fighters have done for the fight, with McGregor seemingly preparing for the majority of this year for the Aldo fight, but Mendes has certainly had an easier time of it during fight week.
Whether that will have any impact at all come Saturday night is yet to be determined, but for now, Mendes will take solace in the fact that all the pressure is on McGregor.
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