This hurt Conor allot. Sure he has losses but his last one before Diaz was 6 years ago. Those losses were marketed as losses while he was not the fighter he is today. Still learning ect. He didn't lose to a guy that many seen on the same level as he was. People were propping him up to be on the level and maby a level above Anderson , G.S.P. , Jones ect. He lost to a guy that had 10 days notice and is 3-3 in his last 6.
It is only a matter of time before Conor losses his belt at 145lbs and is stuck in limbo of either getting UD and subbed from decent wrestlers that can take him down or looking like a monster KO'ing those who can't ( if he stays at 145 ). A string of losses awaits him at 155 / 170 lbs if he decides to give that a try again.
If Conor doesn't win his next fight... interest in him will fade. He will still have a big following but it won't be like it is currently or before last night. I think he has allot better chance at beating Aldo than he does Edgar. So he better lobby for that fight. I sense a pay cut for Conor if he loses his next fight.
I think that is the way to go. They get two big fights to promote instead of one. The Ronda vs Holm fight will always be attractive and sell. Tate might just spoil his plans and pull the upset over Ronda. I think if Ronda losses again she is done.
Not only that was his first UFC defeat, but, let's be honest, I'm a Diaz Bros fan, but Nate is not the toughest guy in the UFC, not even close. His record is not impressive at all.
So losing to a gate keeper who had 11 days to prepare is very bad and it does damage Conor's Superman image in the UFC.
Everyone, except MMA newbies, knew that Conor was a good striker with a LOT of holes in his game especially on the ground.
He is going to have a hard time cutting weight back to 145 to keep his belt. And Frankie is a real trouble.
Winter is coming, Conor.
There's a lot of valid points in the above - but if you take a step back and think about the
business of what happens in the fight business, not just what happens inside the cage, there's really no reason to think McGregor will stop being the biggest draw in the sport. The UFC is already making what seem to be some clever moves in that direction...
First of all they can still say (and I'd probably even bet money that they
will say) that he's undefeated as a UFC featherweight. And he still holds a belt. So they can gloss over this loss pretty easily and stick him in the main event of UFC 200 without a worry. It'll still do megabucks. The only option they really lost this weekend was a shot at the welterweight title.
Second there's no guarantee that he'll even fight Frankie next, they could give him Aldo* again. Tell me McGregor isn't a favourite going into that fight...
Third, they're doing some very clever but subtle stuff framing this loss. Dana has already started talking about a title shot for Diaz coming off this win... but a title shot against
Robbie Lawler, not RDA. They'll push the fact that this fight happened at welterweight and leave the option open for McGregor to come back up to lightweight to challenge for that belt.
Fourth, people are massively,
massively overreacting to one loss. You know who else has losses on their record, even some more embarrassing than this one? Anderson Silva. GSP. BJ Penn. Matt Hughes. Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson and Manny Pacquiao for crying out loud. They're all viewed as legends of combat sport, despite having a few losses here and there.
I'm not saying McGregor has earned the right to be included with names of that calibre yet - people's mileage will obviously vary wildly on that point. But they ALL prove that you can have a record with a few losses on it without having to shut up shop as a top draw in this game.
For my money I think he's more likely to go the BJ Penn path - eventually being respected for taking big risks like fighting up to weight classes and taking difficult opponents on short notice, rather than the "safe" path that someone like GSP took (talking about superfights, but never actually booking them, etc).
* for the record I like Frankie Edgar a lot, and I'd feel legit bad for him if they screwed him like this. But tell me it's not the safer option for the UFC