Conor McGregor has captured the attention of fans in a way no fighter in the sport's 23-year history has. At some future point in time, maybe he'll be yesterday's headline. But for now he's king of the hill.
In the cage, the Irish striker is one of a kind. His striking sequences border on sublime, flaunting a level of speed and accuracy that few can match, combined with a degree of power that has wilted every man put before him.
Out of the cage, he's no less sweeping. While MMA has had a handful of gifted smack-talkers over the years, none has been able to infuriate the opposition, and potential future opposition, the way McGregor has.
Even when he isn't channeling his inner Floyd Mayweather Jr. and using his wealth to get his naysayers' blood boiling, people actively seek out what he's saying and doing, with everything from his tattoos to his toys to his celebrity training partners piquing fans' interests.
But while combat sports don't often conform to the rules and practices of stick-and-ball sports, there is one ever looming thing that they have in common: Success at the highest of levels tends to be short-lived.
The moment that McGregor planted his flag at the top of the MMA mountain, by beating Jose Aldo for the UFC Featherweight Championship, the question turned from "can he do it?" to "who will be the one to knock him down?"
The first man who will try to bring him back to earth, as you've likely heard, will be Nate Diaz. Replacing an injured Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 196 on Saturday, the fan favorite, who is known for his rangy boxing and superb jiu-jitsu, has the chance to redefine his own legacy by knocking off MMA's hottest act.
Unfortunately, while few would disagree that this is a big opportunity for Diaz, practically no one is actually picking him to win. The Stockton, California-based fighter's plodding style and minimal cage-cutting skills play directly into the Irishman's hands and will likely lead to a long, hard night for Diaz.
Looking past him, the matchup with Dos Anjos is no small task for McGregor. The lightweight champ has always been a great ring general, and he has recently tapped into a well of power striking to become one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the game.
Still, McGregor fans shouldn't necessarily be all that worried about Dos Anjos. Despite the Brazilian's offensive prowess, he still has noticeable holes in his defense, and few are better than McGregor at capitalizing on those sorts of openings.
Pinpointing who has the greatest chance of ending McGregor's undefeated run in the UFC should be more difficult than it is, because McGregor is that skilled and the lightweight division features so many good fighters. There is, however, one clear-cut favorite to dethrone him: a Russian grappler by the name of Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Who Is Nurmagomedov?
This is a more difficult question to answer than one might think.
At times, Nurmagomedov is the stereotypical Russian super-athlete. Channeling the mystique of the Cold War-era Soviet national ice hockey team that dominated its Western opposition with a robotic efficiency, he has sliced through his UFC opposition with scary ease. His upbringing, much like his in-cage achievements, befits a real-life Ivan Drago.
Raised in the war-torn Republic of Dagestan, smoke and rubble were the backdrop to his generation. Tension between the Russian government and Islamic militants living in southwestern Russia started in the 1980s and became violent in the 1990s. By 1999, when Nurmagomedov was 10 years old, things had escalated to full-scale war.
Dagestan, a region that has never been a stranger to conflict, became a battleground for Chechen warlords seeking to start an independent Islamic State of Dagestan and the Russian military. All the while, a young Nurmagomedov was first learning his way around the wrestling mats.
Karim Zidan of Bloody Elbow wrote that "in Dagestan, the economic climate has narrowed many of the youth’s options for socioeconomic stability down to two avenues: militant Islam or a career in sports." Luckily, Nurmagomedov's father, Abdulmanap, made that an easy choice for him. An accomplished fighter himself, Abdulmanap made a living as a children's wrestling coach and had Khabib honing his skills on the mat as soon as he could.
By age eight, Khabib was training in freestyle wrestling. When his son was nine, his father was literally having him test his skills against bears.
While one might expect Nurmagomedov to be a stoic killing machine with that backstory, he carries himself more like a full-blown pro wrestling heel.
Since infuriating a raucous Brazilian crowd with a shirt that read "if sambo was easy it would be called jiu-jitsu," he has become the primary antagonist for a sizable portion of the lightweight Top 10. Crashing press conferences, getting into massive out-of-the-cage brawls and lighting up MMA's social media scene with constant barbs, Nurmagomedov has successfully jabbed most of the high-level cohorts.
Like McGregor, Nurmagomedov has backed up his talk in the cage to this point.
With a 22-0 record (6-0 in the UFC), he has established himself as one of the greatest lightweights in the world. Unlike McGregor, however, Nurmagomedov is at his best when he's up close and personal with opponents.
It should come as little surprise that a lifelong wrestler is great at grappling, but Nurmagomedov has established himself as arguably the most formidable in the sport today. With amazing resiliency and a seemingly endless gas tank, he has completely smothered all comers to this point in his career. That hasn't been against soft competition either, as he's dominated steely veterans such as Gleison Tibau and Pat Healy; he even outworked current UFC lightweight champion Dos Anjos just under two years ago.
A growing contingent of MMA fans have come to see him as the future heir to the lightweight empire.
What Makes Him Such a Difficult Matchup for McGregor?
In the cage, McGregor has been beyond question. He has faced no serious adversity on his crusade to gold and has had no trouble in knocking out six of his seven UFC opponents to date. The only thing working against McGregor's unstoppable mystique is the UFC's favorable matchmaking approach with him.
For the most part, the UFC actively tries to tear down its young talent. Lethal strikers are put into the cage against heavy wrestlers, heavy wrestlers are put into the cage with seasoned submission experts, and so on.
While that approach does effectively separate the true contenders from the rest of the pack, it also prevents most top fighters from developing an early "aura of invincibility" as the majority of champions and title challengers are exposed two or three times before ever reaching a main event. With McGregor, however, the UFC knew it had something special right from the get-go.
The Irishman was a finished in-cage product by the time he signed with the UFC, and had a fan following before ever stepping into the Octagon, courtesy of his at-the-time, over-the-top interviews in Cage Warriors. Rather than try to tear him down, the UFC decided to build him up by giving him numerous showcase opponents.
(Warning: Video contains NSFW language.)
McGregor's bread and butter has always been his deadly left hand, and he is at his best when he has the space and time to utilize it. With that in mind, the UFC matched him against opponents that played to his strengths, pairing him off with slower, submission-focused fighters such as Diego Brandao and Dustin Poirier while keeping him away from potentially troublesome wrestlers such as Dennis Bermudez and Darren Elkins.
McGregor eventually defeated a top-notch wrestler in Chad Mendes at UFC 189 (it should be noted that Mendes took the fight on a week's notice) but struggled to deal with Mendes' takedowns, getting dragged to the mat four times in less than 10 minutes. That spells trouble against Nurmagomedov.
There isn't a more relentless grappler in MMA today than Nurmagomedov, whose combat sambo background helps him to close the distance on opponents, setting him up to utilize his strong freestyle wrestling skills. That mix of disciplines makes him an absolute grappling machine, best evidenced by his three most recent fights, which have seen him complete a whopping 32 takedowns and break the UFC record for most takedowns in a single fight (21, at the expense of Abel Trujillo).
Obviously, this isn't to say that Nurmagomedov would turn McGregor into a grappling dummy. The Russian's striking has never been tested, and McGregor is far more elusive than the likes of Healy and Trujillo. Add to that Nurmagomedov's terrible injury history and it's no guarantee that he will be as explosive after having undergone two major knee surgeries.
Still, nobody is better positioned to defeat McGregor than Nurmagomedov. The only question is if this fight will ever actually take place...
Will This Fight Actually Happen?
McGregor and Nurmagomedov have been nearly perfect thus far in the UFC, but there are many, many things keeping them apart.
If McGregor continues winning, he is likely booked deep into 2017. With a win over Diaz at UFC 196, he'll almost certainly move onto the previously scheduled lightweight title fight with Dos Anjos. What's more, if he takes home another UFC title, the writing on the wall is that he could go for a third belt, and challenge Robbie Lawler for the UFC welterweight championship.
None of those are easy fights for the featherweight champ, and should he stumble along the way, things become completely unpredictable.
Nurmagomedov's faces a far less defined path. His next fight though will very likely be the toughest of his career, as he faces off with Tony Ferguson at UFC on Fox 19. Ferguson, with a 10-1 record in the UFC, is an incredibly crafty fighter and has flash finishing skills standing and on the ground. For all his grappling prowess, Nurmagomedov will likely struggle to hold El Cucuy down for any length of time.
Looking further into the future, things become completely amorphous.
While Nurmagomedov would traditionally become the on-paper No. 1 contender at 155 pounds with a win over Ferguson, Dos Anjos most likely has that rain check with McGregor. That will probably force Nurmagomedov into another fight with another top lightweight like Eddie Alvarez or the Anthony Pettis-Edson Barboza winner.
Unfortunately, it's hard to become too invested into Nurmagomedov's future. While his skills are peerless, his body just hasn't been able to hold itself together, which has resulted in a two-year hiatus from the sport due to multiple knee injuries. Three consecutive fights have fallen apart with Nurmagomedov, which makes it hard to imagine him suddenly becoming a steady presence for the lightweight division.
Because of all that, the odds are stacked against a McGregor vs. Nurmagomedov showdown. If both men continue racking up wins, though, the fight is an inevitability down the road.
Assuming McGregor wants it of course.
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