Conor McGregor is one month away from challenging Rafael dos Anjos for the UFC Lightweight belt.
A win by McGregor will be one of historic proportions, it would make him the third man in UFC history to become champion at two different weight classes and the first man to ever hold two belts at the same time in the history of the organisation.
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Fans and media are split down the middle for predicting the outcome of this fight. However just this past week UFC president Dana White weighed in on the contest, as did the No.1 ranked pound-for-pound fighter on the planet Jon Jones.
“Conor wants to be a two-belt champion, so he wants to fight [Rafael] dos Anjos, which is crazy,” White said on Opie with Jim Norton last Thursday.
“I don’t see how he wins this fight, He’s the 145-pound champion. He can stay in his own lane. This guy is moving up to 155 to take on an animal, who destroyed Cowboy Cerrone, destroyed Anthony Pettis. And this isn’t boxing, where you move up two or three pounds. You move up 15 pounds,” White said to Andy Nesbitt of At The Buzzer on FOX this week.
The UFC has often been criticised for their favouritism towards McGregor in his career, giving him favourable match-ups and putting the UFC marketing machine behind Conor at the earlier stages of his career.
Rumors were flying this week that the UFC hired Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler Jordan Burroughs as a coach for McGregor in preparation for dos Anjos.
White did respond to these rumors, saying “That’s ridiculous” in a tweet to John Morgan of mmajunkie.com when asked about these rumors.
Jon Jones also got in on the action when he was interviewed by Brazilian actress Rainah Andrews this week and asked who he picked in the super-fight.
“It’s hard to say, I’m a big fan of McGregor, I’m becoming a huge fan of RDS. Based on RDS’ performances, I think I’m going to go with him. I’m not rooting for either person, but if I had to put my money on someone, I’d put it on RDS…. RDA, I’ve been calling him RDS,” said Jones.
What I decided to do was go back and watch the last five fights of dos Anjos. The biggest thing I took away is that what makes him such a good fighter could also be his kryptonite when facing a man like McGregor.
The Nate Diaz fight with dos Anjos was a big one. This was the last time dos Anjos has fought a true south paw fighter like McGregor. Despite the commentary and media backlash of Diaz in this contest, Diaz did have a lot of success standing up with dos Anjos. The trades in the pocket were even and Diaz was able to connect his strikes at will against dos Anjos in the first half of the fight.
It was the wrestling of dos Anjos and Diaz coming in so out of shape that made this fight seem so lopsided. Diaz isn’t known as a powerful striker so if dos Anjos is going to exchange in the pocket like he did with Diaz, this will prove to be very problematic for him.
His last two performances against Pettis and Cerrone are as advertised – complete destruction of top five lightweights. Dos Anjos won these fights with pure aggression and was able to make these high level lightweights look completely out of his league. However, I’m not sold on these performances.
Pettis is not the dynamic striker the media portrays him to be. I’ve always felt this way even before his back to back losses to dos Anjos and Eddie Alvarez. I understand that he has flashy kicking techniques and can end anyone’s night with one kick to the chin. But Pettis’ boxing is his downfall.
He often throws jabs and straights to set up his kicking game, so he doesn’t really have the boxing technique to out point a high level striker and certainly doesn’t have the power in his combinations to end opposition with his hand power.
This is what dos Anjos was able to exploit in that fight. Dos Anjos was able to close the distance on Pettis, taking this fight out of kickboxing range where Pettis loves to be, forcing him to trade at a boxing range in the pocket, knowing that’s where Pettis’ weakness is.
A lack of power and elite boxing from Pettis is why this fight looked so bad on him. He was never able to get the respect of dos Anjos at boxing range.
The Cerrone fight was quick however there was something to take away as well. Just like Pettis, Cerrone is very dangerous at kickboxing range but when you close the distance on him and force him into a boxing range he’s not among the elite.
Cerrone’s hands are not powerful and he rarely throws in combinations, he often throws in single jabs or straights, finishing with a high or low kick.
Same recipe for dos Anjos, close the distance with aggression and trade aggressively in the pocket knowing his boxing is superior to Cerrone’s. The finish was impressive as it was early in the fight but what many people don’t know is that Cerrone literally has half a stomach.
He often gets hurt in fights with body shots because of this. So while it is impressive, I have a hard time believing that a man as tough as Cerrone with a full stomach could get hurt by a short knee of dos Anjos in the clinch.
Dos Anjos shows a complete lack of respect for the power of every opponent he faces. He trades in the pocket at will against all of his opponents. He’s able to set up his wrestling off this and relies heavily on his chin against everyone he faces.
This is bad news when facing a man like McGregor. McGregor’s left hand whether you like him or not is fight-altering power. There is no way that dos Anjos can expect to trade with McGregor like he’s done with all his other opponents.
But I think he will, it’s just how he fights. Extremely aggressive, pushing the pace and trading in the pocket.
We seen it in the Aldo fight, McGregor doesn’t need to be moving forward to end your night either, He’s very dangerous moving backwards as well.
There is just going to be too many openings for McGregor in this fight to land that left hand. If you don’t think his power will transfer to the lightweight division then I believe you’re sadly mistaken. Have you seen his twitter pictures? He looks like someone who is cutting to welterweight.
McGregor is not crazy and this is not a dangerous fight for him to take. Can dos Anjos out wrestle him to get the win? That’s definitely a possibility. But the amount of a window that Conor needs is so small to win this fight compared to the window dos Anjos needs.
Dos Anjos relies on his chin too much in his fights. That chin will be tested, and I can’t see it passing given how often he gets hit.
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