Official Conor McGregor thread (part 4) *Updated Warning in 1st Post Re:Boxing match

Mellor

threeball wrote: »

cletus wrote: »

More like he'll own 40 million of the debt they're trying to service

Now that would be funny. Mayweather money wiped out.

That's also not how it works ...

cletus

threeball wrote: »

Now that would be funny. Mayweather money wiped out.

That's not how it works either

threeball

pastorbarrett wrote: »

I suspect if equity is to happen on any sort of long-term basis, they'll clearly be looking post-career and want him as some kind of figure-head - though not unfeasible that the role may be more than a nominal one.

I don't think there's a chance he gets equity unless they're exceptionally stupid. He is literally one loss away from being worth less than 50% of his current ppv numbers.

His star is falling. One loss will heavily taint him. As will avoiding fighting Tony. Two losses and he's yesterday's news and attention will go elsewhere. Offering equity based on a hope he'll come through and bolster the finances is a huge gamble. Look how quickly Silva became worthless or how Jon Jones went from premium name to unfixable.

threeball

cletus wrote: »

That's not how it works either

Depends on the deal he strikes if he strikes one at all. Can't see him getting a free ride with all the benefits and none of the risks.

cletus

threeball wrote: »

Depends on the deal he strikes if he strikes one at all. Can't see him getting a free ride with all the benefits and none of the risks.

So you think the deal he will strike is that he must pay them 40 million dollars for a 1% share of the company...

VW 1

Subcomandante Marcos wrote:

Conor asked for shares, as pointed out by Marky Mark if he wants shares in WME-IMG he has to buy into the company, but even if he does that the company can't let him compete under their banner. How the feck can a promotion try claim be impartial if one of their fighters is part owner of the promotion?

Buying shares in wme-img as a whole, does not equate to an equity piece in the UFC company holding they own.

wonderfullife

threeball wrote: »

1. He is literally one loss away from being worth less than 50% of his current ppv numbers.

2. His star is falling. One loss will heavily taint him. As will avoiding fighting Tony. 3. Two losses and he's yesterday's news and attention will go elsewhere. Offering equity based on a hope he'll come through and bolster the finances is a huge gamble. 4. Look how quickly Silva became worthless or how Jon Jones went from premium name to unfixable.

I agree that it *feels* that way but in reality not much of the above has any basis in fact, in my opinion.

1. There's absolutely nothing to suggest another loss will result in a "50% loss of PPV numbers".

He lost to Nate, who at the time was a journeyman lightweight with a niche fan appeal. Far from it having a negative effect, what actually happened was both Conor and Nate's popularity exploded (Nate went from 185,000 followers on twitter last year to 1,000,000 followers now).

Conor's next PPV after the loss didn't reduce by 50%, it actually increased. UFC 196 and UFC 202 remain the #2 and #1 PPV's in UFC history. UFC 205 didn't even drop off by that much sitting at #5 of all-time and set one of the highest gates in combat sports history ($17.7m) and was still 20% higher than the Aldo PPV.

There's no basis in fact to assume his next loss will be detrimental. Conor seems to have a baseline of 1.2 million buys regardless of opponent or circumstances and I suspect with the explosion of his fame, that baseline will be 1.4 million from here until the end.

2. By what metric is his star falling? I know it feels that way but literally all of the evidence says otherwise.

Social media and google searches are a fair indicator of the level of someones fame. This time a year ago Conor had 8 million followers on instagram, he now has 21.2 million and there's a similar increase on Twitter (2.9 million to 6.6 million).

He has never been more popular and it's continuing to climb at a rapid rate. The casual fan sees him as a fearless Irish nutter who will take huge risks, going up in weight, trying his hand at boxing etc. Even his little incident with Goddard gained him 800,000 followers :rolleyes:

3. You can get to a level of fame where losses mean absolutely nothing and imo Conor is at it. He will *never* become "yesterdays news", he is simply too big to go back to that.

He has already had 2 losses in the last 20 months albeit not back-to-back or in the same sport - Nate and Floyd. He talked an enormous amount of sh1t in the lead-up to both fights, lost them both to devastating stoppage so you'd have assumed we'd see some comeuppance but Conor seems to walk through sh1t and come out smelling of roses.

Honestly I think he'd have to shoot someone in broad daylight to take a popularity hit.

I would also be extremely confident if Ronda announced a comeback to fight Cris Cyborg for all the marbles, the PPV would be enormous - despite her getting obliterated in her last 2 contests.

Losses, even brutal consecutive losses, mean nothing when you get to their level of fame.

4. Did Jones and Anderson become worthless?

Anderson lost twice to Weidman back-to-back and the UFC then booked him (wisely) against Nick Diaz. The Silva-Diaz PPV actually sold more than the first Silva-Weidman fight by 100k buys.

After all the shenanigans by Jon Jones (cocaine, pregnant hit-and-runs, d1ck pills, etc) he eventually came back to fight DC for the 2nd time and it was the highest PPV of his career! 860,000 buys.

Far from Jones being "unfixable" I feel confident the opposite is true. When he comes back, they will wheel DC out of a retirement home if necessary and the trilogy fight will do over 1 million buys.


TL;DR - There are a number of factors at play but here are a couple of things I feel are factual statements:

1. Conor has turned off a lot of his early fans by his behaviour but those fans are relatively small in number.

I also don't think he has done anything unforgivable that he can't recapture those fans. Let's keep this in context here - he's acting like an arsehole lately and a lot of the Floyd build-up had dark overtones but there was no genuine bombshell moment.

Compare it to his peers:

He's never been popped by USADA which immediately raises him above Jones and Brock ethically, he's never been arrested either (Jones). He's said a lot of stupid and offensive stuff (Nazi's, 'boy', fag*ot) but he's never insinuated a school massacre of children was a hoax (Ronda). GSP claims to have been abducted by aliens so I don't even know where to start with that one.

Conor's general behaviour - long time girlfriend, small baby, looks after his family, supports team-mates, same gym, same coaches, charity work, loyalty, respect for opponents post-fight etc - is pretty solid behaviour. In terms of his fights - he's never been involved in hand-wrap controversies (GSP), eye-poking controversies (Jones), USADA problems (Jones/Brock), and he's never disrespected an opponent post-fight in the cage (Ronda/Jones).

I feel, for the most part, he's been a consummate professional in the cage which is why I was so disappointed with his half-hearted apology to Goddard.

When Chad Mendes said "do you know what wrestling is Conor?" and he replied "I'd rest my balls on your forehead" - I feel that's the type of 'banter' that a lot of people like me enjoyed. It was extremely low-brow stuff that raised a chuckle but sharp witted and felt in good spirits.

These days there's darker overtones that turn a lot of us off but for the most part he's led a pretty drama-free career so I'm not ready to get the pitchforks out.

2. In actual fact, whilst he may be losing some support from the above type of fan, he has never been more popular.

He gains nearly 1 million followers a month on Instagram, and is worshipped like a God. In that respect, he's quite similar to the only Irish person with more overall social media followers (Niall Horan), he has a very similar cult-like fanbase and has already surpassed Horan for followers on instagram.

Whilst jumping in the cage and going at Goddard and striking the Bellator official disappointed hardcore mma fans (like us), to the general public it was Conor being a 'mad b*stard'.

They loved it and it made him more popular not less.

3. Matchmaking is crucial after consecutive losses - as we saw by Anderson v Nick Diaz.

If Ronda was to come back to fight Leslie Smith or Sara McMann to regain some confidence, then I'm sure we would see a substantial drop in her PPV numbers. Likewise if Conor returned from consecutive losses to a 'tune-up' fight with Evan Dunham, his PPV would plummet.

But with correct matchmaking - i.e. if Jones comes back to fight DC and Conor comes back from (potential) consecutive losses for the Nate trilogy - it's all gravy for the UFC.

Even shorter TL;DR: Losses mean nothing, Conor is a global superstar and his next PPV will be huge regardless of who he fights. He could and can, in my view, sustain consecutive losses to Ferguson and Woodley (as an example), they could both finish him and he'd still sell over 1 million PPV's the next fight after that - as long as that fight is match-made correctly i.e. Nate.

As Ariel said on the MMA Hour - companies like ESPN and Amazon bidding for tv rights are interested in ONE thing... they're not going to be bidding because they're desperate for the rights to Tyron Woodley v Colby Covington or Rose Namajunas v Tecia Torres.... they simply want Conor associated with their platform.

He's a money-printing machine. WME-IMG will give him everything he wants because if they can't guarantee bidders that Conor will be in a cage fighting, they are fooked for the new tv deal.

Ash.J.Williams

I don't think a loss here or there would hurt his numbers... But I will be apparent that he's not a ufc partner and they may not bend over to accommodate him in the future... Ie they can live without him

threeball

wonderfullife wrote: »

I agree that it *feels* that way but in reality not much of the above has any basis in fact, in my opinion.

1. There's absolutely nothing to suggest another loss will result in a "50% loss of PPV numbers".

He lost to Nate, who at the time was a journeyman lightweight with a niche fan appeal. Far from it having a negative effect, what actually happened was both Conor and Nate's popularity exploded (Nate went from 185,000 followers on twitter last year to 1,000,000 followers now).

Conor's next PPV after the loss didn't reduce by 50%, it actually increased. UFC 196 and UFC 202 remain the #2 and #1 PPV's in UFC history. UFC 205 didn't even drop off by that much sitting at #5 of all-time and set one of the highest gates in combat sports history ($17.7m) and was still 20% higher than the Aldo PPV.

There's no basis in fact to assume his next loss will be detrimental. Conor seems to have a baseline of 1.2 million buys regardless of opponent or circumstances and I suspect with the explosion of his fame, that baseline will be 1.4 million from here until the end.

2. By what metric is his star falling? I know it feels that way but literally all of the evidence says otherwise.

Social media and google searches are a fair indicator of the level of someones fame. This time a year ago Conor had 8 million followers on instagram, he now has 21.2 million and there's a similar increase on Twitter (2.9 million to 6.6 million).

He has never been more popular and it's continuing to climb at a rapid rate. The casual fan sees him as a fearless Irish nutter who will take huge risks, going up in weight, trying his hand at boxing etc. Even his little incident with Goddard gained him 800,000 followers :rolleyes:

3. You can get to a level of fame where losses mean absolutely nothing and imo Conor is at it. He will *never* become "yesterdays news", he is simply too big to go back to that.

He has already had 2 losses in the last 20 months albeit not back-to-back or in the same sport - Nate and Floyd. He talked an enormous amount of sh1t in the lead-up to both fights, lost them both to devastating stoppage so you'd have assumed we'd see some comeuppance but Conor seems to walk through sh1t and come out smelling of roses.

Honestly I think he'd have to shoot someone in broad daylight to take a popularity hit.

I would also be extremely confident if Ronda announced a comeback to fight Cris Cyborg for all the marbles, the PPV would be enormous - despite her getting obliterated in her last 2 contests.

Losses, even brutal consecutive losses, mean nothing when you get to their level of fame.

4. Did Jones and Anderson become worthless?

Anderson lost twice to Weidman back-to-back and the UFC then booked him (wisely) against Nick Diaz. The Silva-Diaz PPV actually sold more than the first Silva-Weidman fight by 100k buys.

After all the shenanigans by Jon Jones (cocaine, pregnant hit-and-runs, d1ck pills, etc) he eventually came back to fight DC for the 2nd time and it was the highest PPV of his career! 860,000 buys.

Far from Jones being "unfixable" I feel confident the opposite is true. When he comes back, they will wheel DC out of a retirement home if necessary and the trilogy fight will do over 1 million buys.


TL;DR - There are a number of factors at play but here are a couple of things I feel are factual statements:

1. Conor has turned off a lot of his early fans by his behaviour but those fans are relatively small in number.

I also don't think he has done anything unforgivable that he can't recapture those fans. Let's keep this in context here - he's acting like an arsehole lately and a lot of the Floyd build-up had dark overtones but there was no genuine bombshell moment.

Compare it to his peers:

He's never been popped by USADA which immediately raises him above Jones and Brock ethically, he's never been arrested either (Jones). He's said a lot of stupid and offensive stuff (Nazi's, 'boy', fag*ot) but he's never insinuated a school massacre of children was a hoax (Ronda). GSP claims to have been abducted by aliens so I don't even know where to start with that one.

Conor's general behaviour - long time girlfriend, small baby, looks after his family, supports team-mates, same gym, same coaches, charity work, loyalty, respect for opponents post-fight etc - is pretty solid behaviour. In terms of his fights - he's never been involved in hand-wrap controversies (GSP), eye-poking controversies (Jones), USADA problems (Jones/Brock), and he's never disrespected an opponent post-fight in the cage (Ronda/Jones).

I feel, for the most part, he's been a consummate professional in the cage which is why I was so disappointed with his half-hearted apology to Goddard.

When Chad Mendes said "do you know what wrestling is Conor?" and he replied "I'd rest my balls on your forehead" - I feel that's the type of 'banter' that a lot of people like me enjoyed. It was extremely low-brow stuff that raised a chuckle but sharp witted and felt in good spirits.

These days there's darker overtones that turn a lot of us off but for the most part he's led a pretty drama-free career so I'm not ready to get the pitchforks out.

2. In actual fact, whilst he may be losing some support from the above type of fan, he has never been more popular.

He gains nearly 1 million followers a month on Instagram, and is worshipped like a God. In that respect, he's quite similar to the only Irish person with more overall social media followers (Niall Horan), he has a very similar cult-like fanbase and has already surpassed Horan for followers on instagram.

Whilst jumping in the cage and going at Goddard and striking the Bellator official disappointed hardcore mma fans (like us), to the general public it was Conor being a 'mad b*stard'.

They loved it and it made him more popular not less.

3. Matchmaking is crucial after consecutive losses - as we saw by Anderson v Nick Diaz.

If Ronda was to come back to fight Leslie Smith or Sara McMann to regain some confidence, then I'm sure we would see a substantial drop in her PPV numbers. Likewise if Conor returned from consecutive losses to a 'tune-up' fight with Evan Dunham, his PPV would plummet.

But with correct matchmaking - i.e. if Jones comes back to fight DC and Conor comes back from (potential) consecutive losses for the Nate trilogy - it's all gravy for the UFC.

Even shorter TL;DR: Losses mean nothing, Conor is a global superstar and his next PPV will be huge regardless of who he fights. He could and can, in my view, sustain consecutive losses to Ferguson and Woodley (as an example), they could both finish him and he'd still sell over 1 million PPV's the next fight after that - as long as that fight is match-made correctly i.e. Nate.

As Ariel said on the MMA Hour - companies like ESPN and Amazon bidding for tv rights are interested in ONE thing... they're not going to be bidding because they're desperate for the rights to Tyron Woodley v Colby Covington or Rose Namajunas v Tecia Torres.... they simply want Conor associated with their platform.

He's a money-printing machine. WME-IMG will give him everything he wants because if they can't guarantee bidders that Conor will be in a cage fighting, they are fooked for the new tv deal.

If you think amazon or anyone else would base a deal worth 10s of millions on whether conor mcgregor will fight or not you're away with the fairies. No serious company would base their decision on one egg. Especially one as volatile as McGregor has shown himself to be.

Joe Musashi

Joe Musashi wrote: »

Conor McGregor is a dirty ****ing knacker. End of story.

To expand a bit further, he acts in an unsportsmanlike and racially demeaning way towards a historically abused group like African-Americans all the while draped in our national flag. The "working class hero" shtick does not fight this individual and he sets a bad example to young people who like up to him like that young boy on The Late Late Show some time back.
I cannot respect his conduct or his disrespect for authority. His behaviour towards a top referee like Mark Goddard were unacceptable. 
He might be a talented fighter but that does not give him a free pass to like a thug outside of the cage. 
If he were not a fighter perhaps he would be a hooded thug wandering the streets in Dublin looking for decent people to rob. He might be wealthy man but he is of poor character and I have not even touched on his crass insult towards the LGTIQ+ community.

Mellor

Joe Musashi wrote: »

To expand a bit further, he acts in an unsportsmanlike and racially demeaning way towards a historically abused group like African-Americans all the while draped in our national flag.

Maybe he's a racist, I've no idea. But during the Mayweather build-up people. especially the US media, were going way out of their way to portray him as one. And example being the "dancing monkey" comment. If people decided to intentionally misconstrue that so as to direct it towards black people, it says more about them than him tbh.

I have not even touched on his crass insult towards the LGTIQ+ community.

I'm not aware of a comment he made towards the LGBT+ community. Not saying it didn't happen, just not aware of it.

hewhoscares

Yeah the TV deal is buying into the UFC brand first and foremost, a serious amount of content that hits steady figures. Its a brand that has have a loyal fervant fanbase, that consumes all sorts of cross platform stuff around the sport be it podcasts, magazine shows etc.

Conor is the rising tide that brings up all ships. But in 4 fights time he could well be yesterdays news.

Pacman lost a few and his PPV numbers went down. Tyson lost a few and his PPV numbers went down. AJ loses and you can be sure his PPVs against no names won't be at the 600k or so base rate he's selling at in the UK.

So lets say he loses to Tony - that sells well as we expect (though I do think his star has peaked personally). Then he loses the trilogy to Nate, and theres still intrigue but the numbers are down but theres a fun history there and there'll be trash talk so it does well. But the losses will matter and his comeback fight against Pettis/Gaethje/Lee aint selling that 1.2m baseline.

Tigger

Joe Musashi wrote: »

To expand a bit further, he acts in an unsportsmanlike and racially demeaning way towards a historically abused group like African-Americans all the while draped in our national flag. The "working class hero" shtick does not fight this individual and he sets a bad example to young people who like up to him like that young boy on The Late Late Show some time back.
I cannot respect his conduct or his disrespect for authority. His behaviour towards a top referee like Mark Goddard were unacceptable. 
He might be a talented fighter but that does not give him a free pass to like a thug outside of the cage. 
If he were not a fighter perhaps he would be a hooded thug wandering the streets in Dublin looking for decent people to rob. He might be wealthy man but he is of poor character and I have not even touched on his crass insult towards the LGTIQ+ community.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99515344&postcount=1

let he who is without sin ...

Mellor

Tigger wrote: »

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99515344&postcount=1

let he who is without sin ...

Link doesn't work

Joe Musashi

Tigger wrote: »

Joe Musashi wrote: »

To expand a bit further, he acts in an unsportsmanlike and racially demeaning way towards a historically abused group like African-Americans all the while draped in our national flag. The "working class hero" shtick does not fight this individual and he sets a bad example to young people who like up to him like that young boy on The Late Late Show some time back.
I cannot respect his conduct or his disrespect for authority. His behaviour towards a top referee like Mark Goddard were unacceptable. 
He might be a talented fighter but that does not give him a free pass to like a thug outside of the cage. 
If he were not a fighter perhaps he would be a hooded thug wandering the streets in Dublin looking for decent people to rob. He might be wealthy man but he is of poor character and I have not even touched on his crass insult towards the LGTIQ+ community.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99515344&postcount=1

let he who is without sin ...

Leave the hog chasing out of this.

Conor has now been a UFC champion for two years nearly and still hasn't defended a title or even have a title defense arranged. Strip him! I am not a Conor hater but the UFC are watering down their belts, there is no long term thinking here.

raze_them_all_

Deleted User wrote: »

Conor has now been a UFC champion for two years nearly and still hasn't defended a title or even have a title defense arranged. Strip him! I am not a Conor hater but the UFC are watering down their belts, there is no long term thinking here.

He has never defended any title ever

Joe Musashi

Tigger wrote: »

Joe Musashi wrote: »

To expand a bit further, he acts in an unsportsmanlike and racially demeaning way towards a historically abused group like African-Americans all the while draped in our national flag. The "working class hero" shtick does not fight this individual and he sets a bad example to young people who like up to him like that young boy on The Late Late Show some time back.
I cannot respect his conduct or his disrespect for authority. His behaviour towards a top referee like Mark Goddard were unacceptable. 
He might be a talented fighter but that does not give him a free pass to like a thug outside of the cage. 
If he were not a fighter perhaps he would be a hooded thug wandering the streets in Dublin looking for decent people to rob. He might be wealthy man but he is of poor character and I have not even touched on his crass insult towards the LGTIQ+ community.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99515344&postcount=1

let he who is without sin ...

If Conor came along and dropped a deuce in your gob then you would thank him and go on about the nutritional benefits he had provided you. yeh, a mow full of ih.

yourdeadwright

For the good of the sport he needs to be striped ,Nothing to do with who he is or his antics just because he doesn't defend belts people train there whole life's to get title shots and he is putting a whole division of fighters on hold, Imagine what Conor would have said if he never got the Aldo fight
Is there any other UFC champions who have never even tried to defended a title ? let alone in 2 divisions

The Nal

yourdeadwright wrote: »

Is there any other UFC champions who have never even tried to defended a title ? let alone in 2 divisions

Not like this. A couple of people failed drugs tests, left the UFC after winning the belts but never held up two divisions like Conor.

Although they stripped Germaine De Randamie for not defending against Cyborg this year but she said she wasn't going to fight Cyborg due to her drug use. And she had only been the champ for a couple of months at this point. Conor has been the LW champ for over a year now and still not a hint of a fight booked.

hatrickpatrick

Ah Jaysus lads, April? That's a sh!te start to this week anyway >_<

Why is he taking it so slow? Do ye think the rumours about him being pulled from the NYE card are true, or was he (as I suspect) never really serious about fighting on that one anyway?

I've had several reasons for his fighting on that card being unlikely, I still say that after his kid being born just a few months ago, he'll want to spend Christmas at home with his family rather than in camp. So TBH, I never really believed the rumours about him fighting on that card. But I'd have thought he'd get something together for March at least - maybe after Mayweather he's decided that two and a half months or so just isn't long enough to get back in shape after chilling out during the winter?

Subcomandante Marcos

Nate entered full on fight camp the other week (he's been training full time since August but mostly just working with Perez at Kings) thinking he was fighting Conor in December.
Woodley's name was floated out after Conor's sherbet fueled antics to see if was something the public would react well to.

Nate is still in camp, he won't be fighting Woodley, and he won't be fighting Conor, but as far as he's concerned the UFC are actively looking for someone for him to fights on December 30th as headline/co-headline with Cyborg and Holm.

Woodley is still recovering from a torn rotator cuff and is still medically suspended (180 suspension issued by California SAC after results of an MRI on August 2nd), there's an off chance that he could be cleared between now and the fight but it's not likely. Nate also doesn't want to fight at 170 so it's probably a no go on his side regardless.

I wouldn't be surprised if the UFC still tried make the McGregor vs Diaz 3 happen, but I think it's more likely he fights someone else, I don't think it will be or should be Tony because this defending interim titles thing is horsecrap, so maybe someone like Peanut or Kevin Lee.

billybonkers

Defend or vacate m**********r

rob316

Should 100% be stripped, its beyond a joke. 2 divisions held up for 2 years.

I cant understand why during negotiations for the Mayweather deal, White didn't insist that he headlined UFC 219 for a unification fight provided he wasn't injured.
You star fighter not fighting in over a year isn't good for business.

Gamebred

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

Nate entered full on fight camp the other week (he's been training full time since August but mostly just working with Perez at Kings) thinking he was fighting Conor in December.
Woodley's name was floated out after Conor's sherbet fueled antics to see if was something the public would react well to.

Nate is still in camp, he won't be fighting Woodley, and he won't be fighting Conor, but as far as he's concerned the UFC are actively looking for someone for him to fights on December 30th as headline/co-headline with Cyborg and Holm.

Woodley is still recovering from a torn rotator cuff and is still medically suspended (180 suspension issued by California SAC after results of an MRI on August 2nd), there's an off chance that he could be cleared between now and the fight but it's not likely. Nate also doesn't want to fight at 170 so it's probably a no go on his side regardless.

I wouldn't be surprised if the UFC still tried make the McGregor vs Diaz 3 happen, but I think it's more likely he fights someone else, I don't think it will be or should be Tony because this defending interim titles thing is horsecrap, so maybe someone like Peanut or Kevin Lee.

Will you be refunding flights and accom costs you assured us on here diaz 3 was happening......

Subcomandante Marcos

Gamebred wrote: »

Will you be refunding flights and accom costs you assured us on here diaz 3 was happening......

It was happening until Christmas Conor got his fresher in hanger impersonation gong in public.

eddie73

I would expect Woodley and Diaz to fight, as there is no other fight likely. Fergeson v Diaz won't happen because Diaz doesn't want to do Conor's ''dirty work.'' Hard to know what is going to happen next for McGregor, but the reality is that there is a whole lot of life in the UFC outside of McGregor if UFC 217 was anything to go by.

The Nal

I can't see Diaz risking his big trilogy payday with a fight vs Woodley.

eddie73

The Nal wrote: »

I can't see Diaz risking his big trilogy payday with a fight vs Woodley.

It wouldn't affect it imo. Even if he were to lose v Woodley, he could always say that it was a fight in a division he has only fought in a handful of times and the lightweight division is where it is at.

Porthallian

I could absolutely see Diaz fight Tony Ferguson on December 30th.

The rabbit in the hat...