They said he never faced a great wrestler...now he did. ..tko in the 2nd. The guys a great fighter..admit it. Plus he's irish
He delivered a TKO and that's what counts.
That said, Mendes took him down at will and if you were to ask a judge, both rounds 1 & 2 would have gone to Mendes, as he did the most damage (just prior to the TKO) in both rounds and landed multiple take downs.
Mendes took this fight on two weeks notice, so he obviously had no gas tank, as he didn't have time to get his conditioning down. But for a guy that only had 2 weeks to prep for a main event fight, he did incredibly well. Even McGregor stated in the post-fight press conference that the guy is the best wrestler in the division and hits very hard.
You give Mendes a full camp and they can easily come back for the win.
On the flip side, Connor clearly has heavy hands, but his style does look sloppy as shit. He towered over mendes and has an 8-inch reach advantage, so clearly he would have an advantage landing punches and controlling the distance.
Ultimately, he promised a 2nd round TKO and made good on that promise, so he talked the talk and delivered.
All that said, the Lawler and MacDonald fight was the true main event. Both of those guys are fucking animals and deserved all the accolades.
I think the Aldo vs McGregor fight should be interesting. Aldo is faster than McGregor, more accurate, has harder kicks and his ground game is amazing. I give the punching power to McGregor between the two, but besides that, nothing else. If I were a betting man, I'd say that Aldo purposely allowed this to go down in order to better prepare for McGregor and see what his tools and tendencies are.
If I were coaching Aldo, I'd plan to simply take McGregor to the ground every single round, keep him there and ground and pound him to death until he either goes limb or a submission becomes apparent.
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