We knew it’d be quick, but we didn’t know it would be that quick. Since the fight was formally announced, it seemed a foregone conclusion that the UFC 246 main event bout between Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone wouldn’t go the distance. Nevertheless, to see the former two-time champion standing tall after dispatching of Cowboy in such an efficient and decisive fashion was still a sight to behold. As he descended upon the T-Mobile Arena to the familiar strains of his Sinead O’Connor/Biggie mash-up, Conor’s steps towards the Octagon radiated an understated confidence. Gone was the billionaire walk and overbearing arrogance of the past. In its place, a disarming humbleness that masked the analytics that he was running in his brain.

UFC 246 – Steve Marcus/Getty Images

40 seconds after Herb Dean allowed the two to engage, Conor would pick up the W without absorbing a solitary strike. At upwards of 170 pounds, McGregor was imposing in both physical appearance and in the surgical dismantling of an MMA legend. Rocking the all-time leader in head-kick KO’s with his own signature move, the stoic Conor kept moving forward and fought with the ferocity of a man with a net worth of $200 rather than $200 million. A performance that arguably surpassed his finest hour against Eddie Alvarez, Conor didn’t simply emulate the dominance of the past, he actively innovated and added new dynamics to his repertoire. Upon catching Cerrone with a knee as he attempted to shoot for a takedown, McGregor weaponized the clinch in a way that took Jon Jones’ offensive use of the shoulder and morphed it into something far more devastating.

Returning after a year and a half without a hint of ring rust, all the tumult of the past few years suddenly melted away as the McGregor hype train had lurched back into life. Sharp, present and as tenacious as he was during his initial ascent, if this upward momentum continues, his dark period in the wilderness seems likely to be downgraded to a minor blip in an otherwise astounding career.  

The Notorious will leave Las Vegas with his head held high and, more importantly, his plan to be incredibly active throughout 2020 completely unimpeded by any medical suspensions or a catastrophic loss. Propelled back to the status of the UFC’s biggest draw, both fans and pundits’ attentions now to turn to who’ll be standing across from him when he next makes the walk. As has been the case for much of his UFC tenure, Conor’s options now fall into two distinct camps– the logical and the extravagant super-fights. Although he’s barely had time to decompress, he isn’t planning on any lengthy lay-off this time around. 

UFC 246 – Steve Marcus/Getty Images

“I don’t think the ‘who’ matters,” McGregor said at a post-fjght press conference. “The who doesn’t matter for me. I’m looking at dates now. I know March was there. I’m going to have a look at a calendar and see where we’re at … I’ll be ready.” As the dust begins to settle on UFC 246, McGregor has proved to millions of people that he still possessed the talent and magnetism that made him a superstar. Not least of all to the UFC’s commander-in-chief, Dana White. Dana suggested that he isn’t that eager to see McGregor squaring off against a new adversary. Instead, he’d rather see him reignite his feud with an old one. Compared to classic boxing rivalries of old such as “Hagler, Hearns, Ali, Foreman, Ali, Frazier,” Dana hopes to facilitate a rematch between undefeated lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and McGregor.

“Going into the Khabib fight, Conor had a lot of personal stuff,” White declared. “Some stuff self-inflicted, he had injuries. He has been obsessed with getting that rematch because he knows that he wasn’t 100 per cent right. This is a massive fight with global appeal. Khabib versus Conor is the biggest fight in the sport’s history.” Considered to be one of the more volatile rivalries in MMA, there’s no doubt that the Dagestani Eagle and McGregor’s rematch could equal, if not surpass, the pay-per-view record that they’d previously set. However, White’s pre-emptive plan negates the possibility of Tony Ferguson exiting his UFC 249 bout against Nurmagomedov with the win.

Criminally underrated for much of his career, El Cucuy’s exclusion from the conversation mirrors the shunting of Justin Gaethje from the matchmaking conversation. A fearsome knockout artist that’s stationed at number 5 in the rankings, McGregor battling the Arizonian fighter could’ve made perfect sense but his lack of perceived drawing power seems to have kiboshed the bout. Even so, he threw his hat in the ring after UFC 246’s conclusion on Twitter. “That man is good. Bitch move to take that fight. Say my name.”

Ever the hotbed of controversy, Justin wasn’t the only fighter to air his grievances on social media. Where Gaethje’s lack of mainstream notoriety puts him at a disadvantage, it’s a problem that the 209’s Nate Diaz doesn’t have to contend with. Tied at one apiece, the straight-talking Stockton scrapper saw McGregor’s triumphant return as a little too storybook, declaring: “this shits all fake.” 

Exciting as the prospect of the trilogy may be, the general consensus among fans is that rather than seeing these two square-off, Conor should fight the last man to best Nate in the octagon. Heralded as the “fighter of 2019,” Jorge Masvidal’s year of defying the odds culminated at Madison Square Garden when he won the newly-minted “BMF” title against Nate. Brought to the mainstream’s attention his highlight reel finishes of Darren Till and Ben Askren, Florida’s “Gamebred Fighter” has amassed a huge groundswell of support among MMA fans and was in attendance at UFC 246. During his appearances on camera and brief interview with Megan Olivi on the PPV broadcast, it became clear that he wasn’t there as a passive observer. 

Dressed in the same Versace robe that Conor had donned before his Floyd Mayweather bout, McGregor’s post-fight interview saw him refer to Jorge as “that fool in his bleeding housecoat.” As the potential opponents were listed off at the press conference, McGregor wasn’t quite done belittling Masvidal yet.  “[The BMF Title is] not a great belt, but I’ll still take it. Add to my collection. It wasn’t a good night for Jorge if you ask me.”

Ridiculed but by no means ruled out, Jorge’s decision to lobby for the fight may have gained the ire of some, but he wasn’t the only representative of the 170-weight class in attendance. Sporting a thumb injury that stemmed from his five-round war with Colby Covington, welterweight champion Kamaru Usman was also watching proceedings very closely. Kamaru’s Twitter was reportedly hacked, resulting in numerous profane comments about Conor’s wife being posted on his account.

The weigh-in at UFC 246 with Dana White – Steve Marcus/Getty Images

Yet while Dana frantically phoned Conor and asked him not to react, McGregor saw it as a transparent tactic to drum up animosity between the two. “I’d be sceptical of that,” Conor remarked. “Because one came through early and it had all the hallmarks of that little fucking weasel, Ali. They give him control of the accounts…This has been going on for a while.” Scarcely acknowledging the incident, an interview with BT Sport saw The Nigerian Nightmare in defiant spirits. “The right fight is anybody to be honest,” he claimed. “I’m the champion. I’m the chase and I like being the one who goes out and silences all these guys. If it’s Conor, he can get it too.”

Ready as the NCAA Division II wrestler and jiu-jistu black belt Kamaru claims to be, now that Conor has regained his momentum, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll be booked in a fight that’d be a complete stylistic nightmare for the pedigreed striker.

Without hesitation, McGregor getting back in the win column compelled Floyd “Money” Mayweather to take to Instagram and post a freshly made graphic for a sequel to their 2017 boxing bout. A longtime admirer of the “sweet science,” Dana White was happy to announce that, in one way or other, The Money Team and the UFC are liaising with one another for 2020. “Floyd is in our plans, and we are in Floyd’s plans this year, and we’ll end up doing something.” Yet for McGregor, the omission of one logo has led him to shift his focus from Mayweather to another boxing legend that expressed a desire to face him. “He forgot ‘McGregor Sports and Entertainment’ on the poster,” McGregor said. “That right there cuts him out, so it’s me and Manny [Pacquiao]…. He’s far from retired, and that rematch will happen at some stage.”

No matter where he heads from here, McGregor’s first bout of 2020 was proof of what he can do when he consolidates his efforts into fighting as opposed to spreading himself too thin. Eschewing the distractions that had derailed him in the past, McGregor seems eager to keep his options open so long as he gets to remain active.

However, should the UFC’s Dana White get his way, Kamaru Usman and Masvidal will abandon their campaigns for the McGregor bout and wage war for the welterweight strap, while Conor will step back into the Eagle’s Nest to attempt to dispossess Khabib of his lightweight title and end his prolific run as an undefeated phenom once and for all. Love him or hate him, you can’t say it’s not good to have The Notorious one back in the mix.

Patience is a virtue. Especially so, in the case of Donald Cerrone vs Conor McGregor. Their mounting animosity has been left to simmer for over five years. Although they’ve both spent the past few years flitting between the 155 & 170-pound divisions, the two have ostensibly been ships passing in the night, travelling on completely different paths that seemed like they may never intersect. While Conor was brokering a lucrative boxing match against Floyd Mayweather, before coming up short in the culmination of his feud with Khabib Nurmagomedov, “Cowboy” has been competing at an expeditious rate.

Conor McGregor at UFC 229 – Harry How/Getty Images

For clarity, Cerrone has stepped into the Octagon seven times between 2018-2019, with his McGregor bout serving as his 51^st professional fight. Within that same sample, the Notorious two-time UFC champion has fought once and had his athletic accomplishments overshadowed by his antics outside of the cage. Peculiar as the matchmaking may seem to the uninitiated, a square-off between McGregor and the Cowboy hasn’t been hastily thrown together. In fact, it’s the culmination of years of near-misses and confrontational run-ins.

However, it wasn’t always this way. And during their initial encounters, the two fighters from blue-collar backgrounds were actually cordial to one another. When they appeared on the same card at 2015’s UFC Fight Night 59 in Boston, backstage footage revealed that the two exchanged pleasantries before the veteran told the fast-rising Irish newcomer to give Dennis Siver “hell” for good measure. But as Conor’s star rose and he morphed into the sport’s biggest crossover star, so too did the irrepressible need to make an enemy out of every unsuspecting fighter within a mile radius. At the UFC’s star-studded “Go Big” conference, Conor shifted his focus from his upcoming contest with featherweight titan Jose Aldo to take aim at then-lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos and his opponent, Donald Cerrone. 

“I see stiffness when I look in that 155-pound division,” McGregor remarked. “I feel like they’re stuck in the mud almost. The featherweights, they hit like flyweights. So, it’s nice down there just destroying them and killing that whole division. But I have my eye on that 155 division.”

Never one to suffer perceived fools gladly, Cowboy didn’t hesitate to ridicule the prospect of McGregor moving to a heavier division: “Conor has no right coming up to ’55. There’s no way; he’s not gonna stand a chance. We’re too big for him, too strong, so you can take your little English ass and get on.”

UFC 205 – Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Yet as the years rolled on, Cerrone would have to eat those words when Conor snatched the 155 strap from one of his former foes Eddie Alvarez, with undeniable finesse at UFC 205. On the other hand, an opportunity to fan the flames of he and Cerrone’s brewing beef fell into his lap in 2016 when he decried Cowboy’s performance in a losing effort to Rafael Dos Anjos. Contested for the Lightweight title, The Notorious One chalked up Cerrone’s 66-second TKO defeat in the biggest fight of his career to simple cowardice. “Cerrone pussied out on that big time,” McGregor proclaimed. “He’s fighting again this week or sometime soon. Ask [Jose] Aldo if he can fight this weekend. He cannot fight. When you win by KO, by stoppage, by a true stoppage, you put your opponent out of action for 10 months to a year. He quit in there inside that Octagon. That’s why he can go now next weekend and say ‘Oh, I fight every week’ and this and that — you can fight every week if you go in and quit. If you were willing to die in there, you wouldn’t have those turnarounds.”

During a February 2016 fan Q&A that preceded his bout against MMA’s other “Cowboy,” Alex Olivera, Cerrone trashed McGregor’s remarks in succinct fashion, stating, “Conor called me a quitter but I didn’t even get started in that fight.” With McGregor heading into the stratosphere, 2016 onward saw the trail go cold as Conor became too much of a transcendent star to be within the reliable Albuquerque-based scrapper’s grasp.

As Crumlin’s most famous son began to reconcile with his own uncertain future, Donald’s resounding victory over Alexander Hernandez within two rounds encouraged McGregor to re-open the door Twitter: “For a fight like that Donald, I’ll fight you. Congratulations.” Fourth months later, Cerrone would lobby for the fight after rendering Al Laquinta unconscious, declaring, “I want the title, whatever that means. Unless, Conor McGregor you want to fight me in July. I’m ready.” Now, almost one year to the day since McGregor’s call-to-arms on social media, the two will finally meet in the middle of the octagon tomorrow, Saturday, January 18.

Both record-breakers in their own right, it’s a fight that, if kept on the feet, is combustible in the best way imaginable. Similarly adept in the striking realm, the disparity comes in the ground game and it’s an area of the sport that Cerrone unquestionably has the edge in. A black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu that harbours considerable wrestling skills to boot, a recent interview with Brett Okamato would suggest that Conor’s Instagram side-swipe of “the first one to shoot’s a cowbitch” has compelled Cerrone to keep things standing: “You know, I probably should,” Cowboy said of taking him down, “but I don’t think I will. I like to fight too; I like to get in there and throw down. Everyone says his stand-up is amazing, so why not go and test it?” Regardless of what game plan Cerrone implements, Conor and his team seem to be treating victory as a foregone conclusion.

Alongside McGregor claiming that he’d still beat Cerrone while afflicted “by the flu,” his longstanding coach John Kavanagh told Ariel Helwani that he sees his prized fighter besting his adversary with little to no exertion. “Whether it’s something that happens in the first minute or if it goes the distance, if it goes 25 minutes, I don’t see it being a war. I see it being very one-sided.” 

UFC 202 – Steve Marcus/Getty Images

However, there’s no shortage of esteemed figures that believe the fight won’t be as cut and dry as Conor and his SBG comrades believe. “I see a lot of people writing Cowboy off,” protested UFC welterweight champ Kamaru Usman, “like he’s just a wash because he’s won some and lost some, but Cowboy’s a very dangerous fight for Conor. I know he’s a professional and he’s going to come prepared but I think… Conor has underestimated an opponent before [Nate Diaz] and he paid for it. And when you light a fire under Cowboy, he’s going to get going.”

Amid all the speculation that surrounds UFC 246’s main event, one thing that’s certainly changed is that the two are now operating within a headspace of mutual respect. Exhibited in numerous interviews, it’s perhaps expressed through a newly-humble Conor’s chat with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani: “Me and Donald have a history. Not a long history, but we’ve had a history. It’s an exciting bout. It’s a fan-friendly bout. It’s a fight that excites me. I appreciate Donald, I have to say,” McGregor revealed. “He’s fought a lot of times since the last time I saw him, at the Aldo press conference many, many years ago (in September 2016).”

A bout which could realistically go either way, we as fans should approach this action-packed contest without getting bogged down about what it means for the rankings or where either man goes afterwards. Ever the picture of contentment, this was epitomized by Cerrone’s typically blasé response to Brett Okamoto when asked what it truly represents. “This is like a fan’s dream fight and I’ve got the best seat in the house. So, I think I’m going to be super pumped. And at 170? Thank you. All the way around, a good time.”

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