UFC rising star Conor McGregor
Irish Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) sensation Conor McGregor (17-2) blitzed German Denis Siver (22-10) at the TD Garden in Boston to set up a massive showdown with UFC featherweight king Jose Aldo in May.
After predicting a two-minute finish pre-fight, McGregor started patiently utilising kicks and a stiff jab to keep the compact Siver at range.
However, with a minute left to go in the first, the Dublin native piled on the pressure, backing his opponent up to the cage and unleashing vicious combinations, leaving the German relieved to hear the bell to end the round.
In the next, McGregor started where he had left off, keeping up a relentless pace, with Siver eventually succumbing to the assault after one minute 54 seconds as referee Herb Dean mercifully saved the German from another onslaught.
Immediately after the bout, McGregor vaulted the octagon to confront Brazil’s Aldo, who was in attendance.
Afterwards, an emotional McGregor, 26, claimed the rest of the division underestimate him and he set his sights on Aldo, saving some choice of words for the division’s kingpin who has not lost a fight in nine years (25-1).
“I’m gonna hand him my spit bucket so he can shine my belt and bring it back here ready for me to take it.
“I don’t think any of these pose a threat, every single one of them keep talking about the [way I] talk. Never once in your life will you hear them talking about the skill, or the technique, because they know I own that.”
After initial talks for the Aldo fight to be held in front of a record 90,000-capacity crowd at Dublin’s Croke Park, the contest looks more likely to be staged in the fight capital of the world, Las Vegas.
UFC president Dana White claimed that while Croke Park is still in on his radar, it makes more sense to hold the fight in the United States.
“There are a lot of obstacles for Croke Park,” said White. “The time, they have a curfew at night where you can’t get permits for past 11 o’clock which means you lose about 25-20% of the pay-per-view (PPV) money in the States.
“The amount of production costs would actually mean that we’d make more money from Vegas, the way we’d have to set it up with the screens because it’s so big. Also, I’m not a meteorologist, but I guarantee it will rain [in Dublin].”
The UFC can look towards huge PPV numbers in the upcoming title fight.
Early indications have shown that Sunday’s clash between McGregor and Siver was the most-watched UFC event of all time, eclipsing the 5.7 million viewers for the 2011 heavyweight title fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos.
This emphasised White’s recent claim that McGregor is “the most marketable fighter the UFC has ever had”.