Everyone’s a winner.
Eddie Alvarez gets his ‘gimme fight’, Conor McGregor has a shot at UFC history and New York gets the gigantic headline fight it deserves.
Dana White rode back on his declarations of last week to officially confirm, last night, that McGregor will challenge Alvarez for his lightweight title at UFC 205 in Madison Square Garden on November 12. Should McGregor succeed, he will become the first ever reigning champion in two weight divisions [he already holds the 145 lbs belt].
Everyone wins, except No.1 lightweight contender Khabib Nurmagomedov and interim featherweight champion José Aldo.
White, the UFC president, had insisted in recent weeks that McGregor would have to give up his featherweight strap to challenge Alvarez. He then claimed he was injured before once again he wanted McGregor v Aldo to happen.
Perhaps he did but the UFC matchmakers had other ideas.
So McGregor holds onto his 145 lb strap a while longer and will be one half of the MSG main event. He faces off against a Philadelphia fighter that destroyed former champion Rafael Dos Anjos, who McGregor was supposed to take on at UFC 196, in July of this year.
There are two other title on the line at UFC 205, as welterweight champion Tyron Woodley faces Stephen Thompson and women’s straw-weight champ Joanna Jędrzejczyk does battle with Polish compatriot Karolina Kowalkiewicz.
The full story of the UFC putting this card together should become apparent at an official press conference at Madison Square Garden later today.
