The Irishman’s tiresome act is doing more to destroy the UFC’s hard-won credibility than any stomach-turning brawl or failed doping testWatching Conor McGregor racing through the loading dock at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Thursday, throwing dollies at a bus like some crazy-eyed hooligan, I could only think of John McCain. It was the US senator who years ago denounced the UFC as “human cockfighting”, affixing a label of lawlessness on mixed martial arts that pushed them into the corners of what was considered acceptable adult behavior. The UFC has worked for years to combat this image, with brain safety and doping mandates that helped attract a corporate buyer and led McCain to reconsider his opinion. Related: Conor McGregor charged with...
Ronda Rousey helped her fellow female fighters gain a foothold in mixed martial arts, while Dana White’s organization raked in huge sums of moneyLooking back, Ronda Rousey was done in the UFC when Holly Holm knocked her out at UFC 193. That was 15 November 2015 and in two rounds Rousey went from a whirl of fury and fire who stomped across all-comers to a crushed soul. It happens this way in fighting, especially in MMA. Once a great champion has been vanquished, it’s hard for them to stand back up. There was a recovery, a promise of future dominance wrapped in virulent torrents of insult and agitation. But when Rousey finally fought again, on the penultimate day of 2016,...
Most people predicted humiliation for the Irishman on Saturday night in Las Vegas. Instead, his bravery likely guaranteed him even more fame and wealthDeep into the fight that was supposed to be a farce, Conor McGregor swung, staggering the greatest boxer of his generation. Every McGregor punch seemed to come from a place that said he wouldn’t be a joke, a man wading into a world in which he didn’t belong. More than a few times on Saturday night he surprised Floyd Mayweather – and how many boxers have done that in the last 20 years?On the night McGregor was supposed to be exposed as a huckster with a mouth, he won by losing. He won by lasting more than...
Inspired by the Irish star’s upcoming super-fight, Jon Jones says he wants to fight 40-year-old Brock Lesnar. But the chase for money could hurt MMAJon Jones sat and waited from afar for the past two and a half years while UFC’s big-money era started without him. That’s why, mere minutes after his perfect finish of Daniel Cormier on Saturday, Jones moved on from the best performance of his career to the prospect of something — and someone — larger.“Brock Lesnar, if you want to know what it feels like to get your ass kicked by a guy who weighs 40lbs less than you, meet me in the Octagon,” Jones howled, in a statement directed at the pro wrestling star and...
A massive cheque with plenty of noughts on end could lure Floyd Mayweather back to ring in what would surely be one of the most one-sided bouts of his careerSome scientists and Silicon Valley smarts increasingly believe that nothing we experience is real, and that life is just a giant computer game created by a far more sophisticated super‑intelligence. This theory even has a name: simulation hypothesis – although, disappointingly, it has nothing to say about whether Cristiano Ronaldo might stay on his feet more in a parallel universe.If these folk are right, then perhaps we should also start asking whether our silicon overlords have got bored with Earth: The Game and decided to tweak the programme radically. And maybe...