‘The Mac’ bounced back from a huge defeat in style with the second-fastest finish of his career in 2020.
It now looks increasingly likely that the days of Conor McGregor competing in MMA are behind us following his recent career update.
Whilst the likes of Mauricio Ruffy have been compared to McGregor, no one has been able to match ‘The Notorious’ when it comes to the attention that he attracted.
The public perception of the Irish superstar has been through many ups and downs over the years but there was simply nothing else like it when he was at the peak of his powers.
McGregor’s focus may now be on BKFC, where he’s a part-owner of the promotion, but his accomplishments inside the Octagon are still remarkable on reflection.
Conor McGregor dismantled Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone after opening up with devastating shoulder strikes
At UFC 229, Conor McGregor came up short in the biggest mixed martial arts contest of all time where he returned to the lightweight division to challenge the champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov.
‘The Notorious’ had already had his reputation damaged by several occurrences that took place away from fighting but after the ugly post-fight brawl that took place in the aftermath of the main event on October 6 in 2018, no one came out of the situation looking particularly great even if it followed an impressive performance from ‘The Eagle’.
In January of 2020, McGregor looked to rejuvenate his MMA career and get back to winning ways by returning against a legend of the sport in Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone.
There were questions ahead of the fight about Cerrone’s ability to handle the pressure of fighting under the brightest lights and he wasn’t able to answer them at UFC 246 following a blistering start from his opponent.
McGregor came out the blocks fast and quickly landed some shoulder strikes in the clinch that instantly caused significant damage to Cerrone’s nose with a technique that you rarely see used that effectively.
Within the first 20 seconds, despite the left hand of ‘The Mac’ being such a feared weapon, it was a left high kick that did the damage.
The kick landed clean and signalled the beginning of the end with McGregor pouncing on his opponent with a flying knee and several big follow-up punches to get the finish in just 40 seconds.
In his post-fight interview, McGregor was particularly enthused about now having UFC knockouts in three weight classes, kicking off what he planned would be a busy year of activity for him in 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic had other ideas as the former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion wouldn’t step back inside the Octagon for another full year.
Conor McGregor’s win over Donald Cerrone in 2020 could be the last time that he gets his hand raised
With the writing seemingly being on the wall regarding Conor McGregor’s retirement from competition, his win over Donald Cerrone at UFC 246 is likely to go down as the final victory of his career.
At the time, it seemed like we would get completely the opposite with the Irishman being incredibly passionate about staying active and putting together three fights that year to get him back on track.
He did go on to fight twice the following year in his back-to-back clashes with Dustin Poirier but the injury that he suffered in their trilogy bout at UFC 264 would rule McGregor out for several years.
Things could have been very different had he been able to get back to increased activity but at this moment in time, it appears that the first-ever UFC champ-champ will retire with a record of 22-6.
