SCRAP SHOTS
McGregor has re-re-retired, saying that ‘the game just does not excite me’ ... Nunes continues her two-division domination ... Garbrandt’s just-in-time moment
At the end of Conor McGregor’s career, maybe fans can make top-5 lists of their favourite times that he “retired.”
For the third time in the last four years, the Irish star announced that he was walking away from MMA on Saturday night.
McGregor sent out a tweet during the main event of Saturday night’s UFC 250 thanking everyone for “the amazing memories” and promising to buy his mom the house of her dreams and then explained his reasons for supposedly retiring to ESPN shortly thereafter.
“The game just does not excite me, and that’s that,” McGregor said to the UFC’s broadcast partner. “All this waiting around, there’s nothing happening. I’m going through opponent options and there’s nothing really there at the minute. There’s nothing that’s exciting to me.”
McGregor is in a bit of an unfamiliar position right now, competitively speaking. He returned to the octagon in January after a prolonged absence and ran right through veteran Donald (Cowboy) Cerrone.
That didn’t exactly thrust him into title contention, though. UFC president Dana
White said McGregor’s next fight should be against hated rival and current lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, but the Dagestani is already booked to fight interim champ Justin Gaethje later this year.
There are other options, like Jorge Masvidal, but the UFC seems reluctant to go in that direction. The company is also currently holding fight cards at the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas with no fans there. It’s understandable if there’s a reluctance to give up a big gate by having him fight this summer, instead of waiting until a time when McGregor can compete in front of a packed house at somewhere like the T-Mobile Arena.
“If Conor McGregor feels he wants to retire, you know my feelings about retirement,” White said at a postfight press conference. “You should absolutely do it.”
Given McGregor’s history, there are going to be a lot of fans who are skeptical about whether they should take the Irishman’s retirement announcement at face value. Read between the lines of his ESPN interview and it sure sounds like all he needs is an opponent who interests him and he’ll be right back in there.
For the UFC, though, McGregor is the latest big star who has publicly considered walking away in the past month. Jon Jones and Masvidal have both complained about what they’re getting paid, while former bantamweight champion Henry
Cejudo retired and vacated his belt while acknowledging that a big payday would bring him back.
THE QUEEN
The fact that the announcing team for UFC 250 spent most of the final round of the main event openly questioning whether there was any woman on the planet who could present a real challenge to Amanda Nunes tells the whole story.
She is quite simply the most dominant fighter in the world, and it’s not even especially close.
Nunes absolutely wrecked
Felicia Spencer on Saturday night. Over five rounds, the Brazilian bantamweight and featherweight champion was dominant in every single facet of the fight and at times seemed to be playing with Spencer.
It was masterful and served only to reinforce her credentials as the greatest female fighter who has ever graced the octagon.
What’s next, though? Nunes has quite literally beaten every single viable challenger for both the 135 lbs. and 145 lbs. belt. You can keep lining up unknown challengers for her to stroll through, but there’s really nobody who looks like they’d give her a real challenge.
Even Nunes doesn’t seem to know what’s next.
“I don’t know,” Nunes said post-fight. “That was my goal, to defend two belts at the same time. I’m defending both belts. I’m the greatest. I’m so happy right now. I don’t know what is next, but I proved it already.”
AROUND THE OCTAGON
If you haven’t seen Cody Garbrandt’s buzzer-beating
knockout of Raphael Assuncao in Saturday night’s co-main event, rest assured that you’re going to have many, many more opportunities. It was a thing of beauty and the fact that it happened a split-second before the bell rang to end the second round only made it that much more dramatic. The entire sequence is really worth watching. It’s MMA striking at its very best ... With all that being said, Garbrandt still shouldn’t be in the conversation for the next title shot at bantamweight. The UFC seems set on rolling with a
Petr Yan vs. Jose Aldo matchup for the vacant 135 lbs. belt, but after that it’s got to be Aljamain Sterling next. The way he imposed his will on Cory Sandhagen and secured the rear-naked choke just 1:28 into the first round was pure mastery. Sterling should be fighting Yan instead of Aldo for the belt, but if that’s not going to happen he needs to get the title shot after that ... As good as Garbrandt’s knockout was,
Sean O'Malley's walked KO of Eddie Wineland was just as incredible. It would’ve been crazy to pick one over the other for Knockout of the Night, so it was good that the UFC gave both a US$50,000 Performance of the Night bonus instead. O’Malley, by the way, is absolutely the real deal. Even the skeptics have to be won over now.