Andy Pi wants to help McGregor win the other half of world

Conor McGregor is a Global Star says Chinese MMA Promoter Andy Pi

Conor McGregor doesn’t yet have the right to put himself anywhere near Muhammad Ali in terms of achievement, fame, or cultural importance, but in one way they’re similar. Ali could move from clownish, to endearing, to infuriating and then back to riveting as the situation called for and McGregor is the same way.

Also like Ali, and Mike Tyson as well, McGregor proves himself as interesting in defeat as in victory. He used a Trumpian mastery of the truncated viral quote and outrageous behavior to keep himself top of mind in the period between his crushing defeat at UFC 196 and his monumental victory last Saturday at UFC 202. With this performance he showed that beyond his usual showboating contrivances, McGregor also has real sense of the dramatic.

He strutted to the cage to the strains of The Foggy Dew, sung by fellow mercurial, Irish prodigy, Sinead O’Connor. The ghostly fight song is about the doomed Easter uprising of 1916 and made rousing theater when combined with the thousands of Irish fans cheering McGregor to the ring.

Once the fight started McGregor revealed a big heart inside that puffed out chest. He faced an aggressive and durable opponent who owns a famous victory over him from the first time they fought. It is no easy thing to defeat a man who has destroyed you once, but McGregor did it.

He fought at a blistering pace against a bigger man and, as was the case in the first fight, the Irishman’s vaunted power evaporated once he got tired, but this time he kept his head and dug it out. Once he saw he could no longer knock Diaz out, instead of panicking as happened in their first fight, he settled for slicing him up.

In their first fight McGregor was bedeviled by Diaz’s superior reach and unorthodox boxing style. This time he solved the puzzle with brutal leg kicks. By the end of the first round McGregor had pulverized Diaz’s lead leg, cutting down on his mobility for the rest of the fight. The kicks worked such wonders for him in the first and second round that it’s a mystery McGregor didn’t stay with them.

As the fight wore on and McGregor started to slow down Diaz began to effectively pressure him with the clinch against the cage, but this time, and this was a key to McGregor’s victory, Diaz was unable to get him off his feet until the final seconds of the fight. The most telling exchanges in the fight were the times when Nate had Conor on the cage hitting him in the body and McGregor, instead of wilting like he did in the first fight, fired back to Nate’s body. These exchanges looked good to the judges and let Nate know that the man he had in front of him was still dangerous. This made Diaz hesitate on the inside giving McGregor just enough space to survive.

The final score was razor thin with McGregor winning by one point on two judges scorecards and the third declaring a draw. Diaz’s fans say their man won the fight but the controversy should settle down. McGregor won a close but well deserved victory. Yes, Diaz never stopped coming forward, threw and landed more, but McGregor’s strikes were the more effective. He knocked down Diaz three times and, most tellingly, when the fight was over both were covered in blood but only one was bleeding.

There will most likely be a rematch and if next time the two men fight in a locked cellar with no rounds and life as the prize, put your money on Diaz. But if they compete under the same circumstances as UFC 202 then McGregor should have Nate’s number again. It’s hard to beat a quicker more athletic man who he has figured you out and if he doesn’t wilt.

McGregor also impressed Art of War FC CEO Andy Pi. He was a lot more disciplined in this fight than the first, said Andy after the fight. Being as fast and athletic as he is and also being left handed, as long as he sticks to his game plan Conor will be extremely difficult to beat, especially if he moves back down to his natural weight class. When I asked Andy about McGregor telling the press that his next fight might not be in the UFC, the man people call the Godfather of Chinese MMA coyly said, Well we’d love to have him perform in Beijing for Art of War FC. He’s conquered half the world with the UFC. We’ll help him win the other half.