He may hold the UFC’s “little-boy” belt, but Eddie Alvarez still doesn’t see Conor McGregor as a champion.
The Underground King is scheduled to defend his 155 lb throne against McGregor in the main event of UFC 205. Although the lightweight king doesn’t see it as an easy fight, he believes the route to victory for him is clear and he is confident that he will still have that golden strap wrapped around his waist after the fight.
Alvarez believes that every single opponent McGregor has faced inside the Octagon has been hand-picked to suit his strengths and, perhaps more importantly, not take advantage of his weaknesses. As he explained on The Countdown with Michael Bisping on Sirius Xm, Alvarez believes he has many of the latter.
“It’s pretty obvious but there’s big holes that are there to be exploited. The opponents that have been picked in the past for him, if you’re a fighter and you know anything about fighting, they’re tailor-made for him to win. I don’t think he’s come up against anyone like myself who’s able to do the things that I can do.”
Eddie Alvarez already had his gameplan for Conor McGregor before the fight was even booked #UFC205 https://t.co/a3LhpuJAe3
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) October 16, 2016
Alvarez was very complimentary of McGregor’s skills as a fighter, but he believes he is lacking in one area and that’s hampering his chances of becoming a real champion. He feels that the way McGregor reacts to adversity during a fight is indicative that doesn’t possess the heart of a champion.
“I think technically Conor’s a good fighter. Technically he’s sound. After a certain point of fatigue, technique doesn’t matter, especially when you’re in a championship fight. It comes down to will, it comes down to your spirit and your willingness to win the fight. That’s the main ingredient that makes a champion and I think that’s what he’s missing.”
“We’ve all seen him in moments of adversity and it just doesn’t look good to me. It doesn’t look champion-calibre. It doesn’t look like someone who’s able to take a beating, sit on that stool and come back to the guy. It doesn’t look that way.”
McGregor has only had two championship fights in the UFC, one was against Chad Mendes, a late replacement who didn’t have a full camp while the other lasted 13 seconds. There are certainly asterisks to this data, although many would argue that the Dubliner dealt with the adversity of being taken down early against Mendes very well to get it back to the feet and score the knockout.
The other argument against Alvarez’s point is McGregor’s most recent win over Nate Diaz at UFC 202. McGregor’s early dominance resulted in him gassing out at the end of the second round, allowing cardio monster to unload on him in the third. Diaz’s machine-gun punches appeared to have McGregor in trouble, but he stuck it out, stayed standing and was able to dig deep to grind out a majority decision win.
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