Category: The Ultimate Fighter

No-show McGregor? TUF contender comes to Conor’s defense

Posted on by Zane Simon in MMA News, The Ultimate Fighter, UFC News

A few weeks ago I wondered if it was possible that Conor McGregor could still make this season of TUF something people were actively interested in and wanted to watch. I think it’s safe to say, at this point, that the answer is no.

Conor McGregor in 2022.
Conor McGregor in 2022. IMAGO/PanoramiC

Other than the fact that the Ultimate Fighter is stale beyond belief, the big ongoing problem seems to be that—as the show’s featured star—Conor McGregor doesn’t seem to care about it at all. Without his buy-in, it seems all that much more clear that it’s just not a product people care about, even when they’re on it.

TUF finalist Brad Katona defends McGregor

Perhaps everything isn’t quite the way it seems, however. Despite his propensity to no-showing things like weigh-ins for his teammates or not cornering his fighters, former Ultimate Fighter winner and current season finalist Brad Katona was quick to defend McGregor in an interview with SI’s FanNation.

He may not look like a man who cares, but he’s spent a lot of money on his TUF team.

“I was reconnected with my coach John Kavanagh, who could direct my training, and it was so nice to be part of the team Conor put together,” says Katona. “I have to get this off my chest–I’ve heard Conor wasn’t around at weigh-ins or in our corner. Conor brought in his nutritionist. He brought in an athletic trainer and a chef and the best coaches. He basically put together a Formula 1 team with every need taken care of, and Conor paid for all of that.

“You can’t question his dedication. It was such an easy decision to go over to Team McGregor.”

It’s not really much of a surprise that Katona, formerly a team Chandler fighter, would be so quick to jump ship to work with Kavanagh, or that he’d be first to provide cover fire for McGregor’s lackluster involvement. Originally training out of Winnipeg Martial Arts, Katona made the move to SBG Ireland full-time back in 2018, before his first run with TUF. He’s called the team home for his fight camps ever since.

“I heard an interview with John Kavanagh, and he said he was very happy with Conor (McGregor) winning, but he wanted to prove that his methodology works and he wants to produce more world champions to prove that,” recalled Katona.

“I saw that and I thought, ‘Why not myself? You’re looking for someone to make a world champion, I’ll come to you.’”

Unfortunately for Katona, he has yet to provide Kavanagh with another title belt, going just 2-2 before getting released in his first stint with the UFC. A four fight winning streak outside the Octagon provided him with a spot on this latest season of TUF, however, and a chance to once again prove he has what it takes to win at the highest levels.

Conor McGregor’s future still uncertain

It’s not just McGregor’s dedication to TUF that’s seemed lacking, unfortunately. The combat sports superstar’s career has been on extended hiatus for more than two years now, following a brutal leg injury suffered against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in 2021. The injury was severe enough, apparently, that McGregor felt the need to withdraw from the UFC’s drug testing pool in order to fully recover. He has yet to re-enter it.

This year’s Ultimate Fighter season was meant to act as the launching pad for McGregor’s comeback. A coach-vs-coach fight against former Bellator champion Michael Chandler to cap off several weeks of potential ‘Notorious’ reality TV antics for an energized fanbase. Instead, the Irishman’s been seemingly throwing in the bare minimum everywhere that money isn’t involved, and is showing less interest than ever in facing Chandler at any date in the immediate future.

“Justin, I’ll slap you around,” McGregor wrote in a sense deleted Tweet, following Gaethje’s victory over Dustin Poirier to win the BMF belt at UFC 291. “I’m the real bmf, he can fight for pennies if he wants but I want spirits, I call the shots, I’m in it to launch shots, f—k chandler, you want it call for it.”

McGregor has also recently expressed interest in fighting Mike Perry, Jake Paul, Nate Diaz—hell, he even suggested himself as a next welterweight title contender at one point. Basically, whenever Chandler isn’t involved, the former UFC double-champ has made it known he’s still interested in fighting. Now if only he’d actually sign on to take a fight.

https://soundcloud.com/bloody-elbow-podcast/utah-has-a-non-disclosure-agreement-with-most-fighters-from-ufc-291?in=bloody-elbow-podcast/sets/all-episodes&si=4f7b1061921e48ed88116358b480e4c4&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Can Conor McGregor still save the Ultimate Fighter from ultimate failure?

Posted on by Zane Simon in MMA News, The Ultimate Fighter, UFC Editorial, UFC News

From a publicity standpoint this season of the Ultimate Fighter has been a complete mess. After two years on the sidelines, the UFC brought superstar Conor McGregor back to TUF to try and bring some juice to a long faded centerpiece of Dana White’s brand.

While not a massive success from the jump, the program’s 294,000 opening night viewers (and .14 18-49 demographic share) were at least somewhat of step up from the last time the show appeared on network TV (capturing just 186,000 viewers back in 2018 on FS1). From that point on, however, ratings appeared to be in a free fall. By episode 3, TUF had just 222,000 viewers and a .07 share of the 18-49 demographic.

Conor McGregor brings a ratings boom to TUF?

Last week, however, something interesting happened, TUF captured 468,000 viewers. People who had been slowly tuning out of a show that had been running more or less unchanged for the last decade were tuning back in. Unfortunately, it seems most likely that the reasons behind the jump were anything other than positive. Two weeks ago McGregor was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a bathroom stall at game 4 of the NBA finals. Since then, he’s been nothing but front page news.

That likely exposes a hard truth about the Irishman’s current celebrity status at the moment, if he’s not fighting—be it in the cage, in the street, or in court—people aren’t watching. Fans didn’t show up to watch a stale, outdated reality TV show just because Conor McGregor was on it, but they did show up to watch celebrity trashfire Conor McGregor even when he’s just on some stale, outdated reality TV show.

TUF didn’t do McGregor any favors

Outside of the scandal rocking McGregor’s personal (and legal) world, it has to be wondered if this season of TUF isn’t doing McGregor’s reputation more harm than good. The major narrative surrounding his involvement in the show hasn’t been about highlighting his coaching skills or the camaraderie of his team, instead it’s been all about the expectations his participation have created for his fighting career.

If the ‘Notorious’ SBG talent signed up to coach against Michael Chandler, surely he also intends to fight against Chandler as well, right? It’s an obvious booking to make, and seems like it’d be a strong PPV seller. It would also require McGregor to pass a drug test of some kind at some point. Something that he still doesn’t seem prepared to do. The further the process drags on more it seems like all this potential promotion work to pit these men against each other has become a big waste of time. As of the moment, his waffling and delaying only looks more suspicious and less like the actions of a man serious about competing against the best.

The other point that seems to have seriously undercut McGregor here was the tweak the producers made to this season of the show. Their attempt to freshen things up by pitting former UFC talents against untested newcomers has been nothing short of an abysmal failure to create competitive fights. That’s also something of an own goal on McGregor’s part, given that he had the option of choosing which group of fighters he wanted to coach and chose the rookies both times around.

The combined result? Through four episodes Team McGregor is 0-4 with two first round knockout losses and two one-sided unanimous decisions. This week, former Ultimate Fighter season winner Brad Katona will face off against 12-3 former Atlas Fights title contender Carlos Vera. Katona went 2-2 in his brief UFC stint, beating Jay Cucciniello and Matthew Lopez, while losing decisions to Merab Dvalishvili and Hunter Azure. Since leaving the promotion he’s 4-0 under the Brave CF banner. There are no odds for the event, but it’s hard not to think Katona will be a very large favorite to take McGregor’s team one fight closer to a season-long shutout.

Silver linings?

Despite the serious cloud of an ongoing sex assault investigation, unnecessary drama from USADA, and a team that can’t seem to win a fight to save their lives, there are still upsides here. In a world where all press is good press, McGregor is making a lot of headlines. Ratings are up and, if his fighters can actually get a few competitive results and carve out even one finals spot, the UFC still has plenty of options to figure out a McGregor/Chandler PPV.

As much as it might gall, the promotion always has the option to give McGregor a drug testing hall pass (at least on the 6-month availability side of things), and as long as people are talking about the man he can always sell a lot of PPVs. The second highest selling UFC PPV of his career was his last one. If he can get out of his own way for just a couple of months, it seems pretty likely a return to the Octagon would still be a major financial success.

TUF is already recorded and in the can as an entertainment product, there’s nothing Conor could do now to make the show ‘better’, that he hasn’t done already—and by the look of things he didn’t do much. But if he can actually start setting down real plans to fight again, he might be able to capture a lot of interest that’s still out there to see McGregor actually perform like an athlete and not just act like one.

https://soundcloud.com/bloody-elbow-podcast/elon-musks-parents-dont-want-him-to-embarrass-the-family-name?in=bloody-elbow-podcast/sets/all-episodes&si=3dd66a1b18dd420cbbd9cad6a09c6e43&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Video: Next Conor McGregor fighter gets blasted by flying knee

Posted on by Zane Simon in MMA News, The Ultimate Fighter, UFC News

Another episode of the Ultimate Fighter is in the books and another fighter from Conor McGregor’s rookie team has found themselves on the receiving end of some brutal punishment.

Rather than doing their usual thing, where the UFC picks up 16-odd untested fighters from the regional scene to find the next potential hot prospect on the rise, the world’s largest MMA promotion mixed things up a little. It’s not exactly another ‘comeback season’, instead Michael Chandler is heading up a team of former UFC vets in the lightweight and bantamweight divisions, while McGregor gets the to helm the prospects. If early going is anything to judge by, it’s going to be a rough season for the newcomers.

Cody Gibson annihilates Mando Guiterrez

Last week, former UFC veteran Roosevelt Roberts dropped a 9-second bomb on Nate Jennerman to open up the season’s very first episode. This time around, things lasted a little bit longer. Unfortunately for Team McGregor, that still didn’t mean Mando Gutierrez saw round 2.

Just three minutes into the opening frame, Gutierrez swarmed forward with a blitz of punches. As Gibson stepped out on the angle and pushed his opponent away, Gutierrez was forced to try and turn and reset. The moment he did, Gibson leapt in with a flying knee and leveled him.

Gibson (19-8) had four fights with the UFC between 2014-15, putting together a 1-3 record in his short Octagon stint. That result looks a lot better in hindsight, however, considering his losses came to current champion Aljamain Sterling, former WEC title challenger Manny Gamburyan, and longtime action standout fighter Douglas Silva de Andrade.

In the eight years since his UFC release, Gibson has put together a strong 7-2 record in MMA. That streak includes a win over former UFC title challenger John Dodson, and former UFC bantamweight Francisco Rivera. Gibson also faced former UFC title challenger Ray Borg at Eagle FC 44 in January of last year, losing that fight via unanimous decision.

Still no date for Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler

While the structure of TUF is supposed to be all about highlighting the fighters competing for a vaunted ‘six figure’ UFC contract at the end of the season, the real stars of the show are the coaches. Following their stint on the Ultimate Fighter, Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler are supposed to meet in the Octagon for a lightweight (welterweight?) clash. As of yet, that fight has yet to be made official.

Much of the difficulty in actually setting a date for that bout seems to lie with McGregor. The UFC superstar has been sidelined for the past two years, recovering from a broken leg suffered against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264. To aid that recovery, McGregor withdrew from the USADA testing pool. The agency has recently said the expect McGregor’s reentry in the immediate future, but Dana White was evasive about nailing down any dates in his latest press conference.

“That’s the business we’re in. Anything is possible in this business… Anything is possible, you don’t know,” White said when asked about MCGregor vs. Chandler (transcript via CBS Sports). “You guys don’t know this much of what goes on behind the scenes and how hard it is to put all these fights together.

“Conor called me a couple of days ago and loved the first episode of ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ and said how happy he was to be a part of it. And I think being here and part of the environment and everything else, he felt it again and felt like he wants to get back and fight. The one thing you guys have to understand is this kid has so much money. It’s like Khabib [Nurmagomedov] now. These guys got shit loads of money and it’s hard to reel these guys back in and get them fired up to get in and fight.”

The current expectation is that the UFC would be looking to have McGregor ready for a December PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (or possibly a November PPV at MSG). However, if the promotion is set on putting the SBG Ireland talent through USADA’s standard 6-month re-integration process before he can fight in the Octagon, then June 16th is the latest he can start before we’re waiting until 2024 to see this fight happen.

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