{"id":27903,"date":"2015-12-14T09:03:18","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T17:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/after-beating-aldo-mcgregor-wants-to-hold-a-second-ufc-belt\/"},"modified":"2015-12-14T09:03:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T17:03:18","slug":"after-beating-aldo-mcgregor-wants-to-hold-a-second-ufc-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/after-beating-aldo-mcgregor-wants-to-hold-a-second-ufc-belt\/","title":{"rendered":"After beating Aldo, McGregor wants to hold a second UFC belt"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS<\/strong> \u2014 Gab is just one of Conor McGregor\u2019s many gifts.<\/p>\n

The Irish star possesses a punching power that has made him an undisputed world champion in just seven UFC fights. McGregor also has an uncanny ability to predict not only the outcome of a fight, but the manner in which he\u2019ll accomplish his next feat of pugilistic prowess.<\/p>\n

McGregor called his shot well before his featherweight title bout with Jose Aldo at UFC 194, vowing he wouldn\u2019t need a full round to stop a champion who hadn\u2019t lost in 10 years. And then he delivered that shot to the side of Aldo\u2019s head to end the fight in just 13 seconds \u2014 a little quicker than even he expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cMystic Mac strikes again,\u201d McGregor said.<\/p>\n

For as much as McGregor talks, he was sure to get some predictions right. Yet when asked to foresee his own future after he ended Aldo\u2019s 18-fight winning streak, McGregor wasn\u2019t quite ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll give it some time,\u201d McGregor said Saturday night. \u201cIt\u2019s Christmas. In the fight game, you travel around, making weight or doing something, and Christmas was taken from me many times. This Christmas was not taken from me, so I get to go home. I\u2019ve put in a hell of a lot of work. It\u2019s been a crazy, crazy year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, McGregor reigns atop the featherweight division and the sport after a remarkable 2015. <\/p>\n

He won three fights, made untold millions and raised his fame near the heights reached by Ronda Rousey, who will be featured alongside him on the cover of EA Sports\u2019 new UFC video game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I am the pound-for-pound No. 1,\u201d McGregor said. \u201cI believe there are many great fighters. There are people who do great things, but when you combine it all together, when you combine the whole package, the whole animal that is the fight game, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s nobody that does it better than me.\u201d<\/p>\n

And McGregor predicts next year will be even bigger.<\/p>\n

McGregor\u2019s next fight will be a title bout at either featherweight or lightweight. McGregor\u2019s coach, John Kavanagh, has said the weight cut to the 145-pound featherweight limit is becoming too tough on the burly fighter.<\/p>\n

After beating Aldo, McGregor confirmed he is interested in the move. He also vowed that he won\u2019t give up his 145-pound belt, instead planning to become a two-division champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way in hell that I\u2019m vacating my belt,\u201d McGregor said. \u201cThere\u2019ll be a belt on one shoulder and a belt on the other shoulder. I understand why previously they would have fighters do that, because many fighters don\u2019t fight as frequently as I do. I\u2019m busy. I stay active. When I go up to lightweight and I take that lightweight belt, I will still be the featherweight champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Rafael Dos Anjos will defend the lightweight title on Saturday in Orlando against Donald \u201cCowboy\u201d Cerrone, and both fighters said this weekend that they\u2019re already confident about their chances against McGregor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he comes up to lightweight, he\u2019s going to get hurt,\u201d Dos Anjos said.<\/p>\n

McGregor is likely to make his decision based on money. After all, he opened his UFC 194 news conference by noting that the event generated a U.S.-record gate of $10.1 million.<\/p>\n

If the popular Cerrone dethrones Dos Anjos, a Cerrone-McGregor fight would be big business \u2014 but a featherweight title fight with former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar would also be lucrative.<\/p>\n

Wherever he ends up in 2016, McGregor will remain unshakably confident in his fists and their ability to make his wildest predictions come true.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these small gloves and with the correct amount of force and correct timing, the human chin can\u2019t take it,\u201d McGregor said. \u201cI said one round. (Aldo) was currently the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter on the roster, undefeated in 10 years, the company\u2019s only featherweight champion. Who comes in and predicts one-round KOs? And I did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2014 Gab is just one of Conor McGregor\u2019s many gifts. The Irish star possesses a punching power that has made him an undisputed world champion in just seven UFC fights. McGregor also has an uncanny ability to predict not only the outcome of a fight, but the manner in which he\u2019ll accomplish his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-27903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27903"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=27903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}