UFC 257 Aftermath: Assessing Greatness and Establishing a Legacy
Rushing to judgment seldom works out well, but legacies are about more than wins and losses too
The aftermath of every big UFC fight seems to play out in a familiar pattern these days, with everyone asking where does the victor stand in the pantheon of all-time greats and was the losing fighter even that good to begin with?
Saturday night in Abu Dhabi, Dustin Poirier knocked out Conor McGregor in the second round of their rematch, which served as the main event of UFC 257.
It was a bit of vengeance for Poirier, who had been felled by the Irish superstar six-plus years earlier when McGregor was making his way up the featherweight ranks, and a reminder to “The Notorious” one and everyone else that success at the elite level is hard to come by, even when you’re a history-making standout and the biggest star in the sport.
Less than 24 hours after the result was made official, McGregor’s place amongst the greats to ever grace the Octagon is being heavily scrutinized, with his 3-3 record over his last six fights, where each of those setbacks have come inside the distance, serving as the main piece of the “Was he overrated?” line of questioning.
As someone who sat in Seat 1A on media row at UFC 189, UFC 194, and UFC 196, where McGregor won the interim featherweight title, unified the UFC featherweight titles, and lost to Nathan Diaz, I can say without pause or uncertainty that Conor Anthony McGregor was not and is not overrated.
Overrated fighters don’t stop Poirier on their way up the divisional ladder, then do the same to Chad Mendes on short notice when all the pressure in the world is resting on their shoulders.
They don’t return to the same venue five months later and end Jose Aldo’s lengthy unbeaten run atop the 145-pound weight class with a perfect left hand just 13 seconds into the fight.
They don’t rebound from an embarrassing setback by obsessively chasing down a rematch and settling the score, then turn around and author a masterpiece to make history by becoming the first person in UFC history to hold championship gold in two weight classes simultaneously.
Yes, McGregor is just 3-3 in his last six bouts, but anyone judging his greatness of those results alone is simply not looking closely enough at the totality of what the 32-year-old from Dublin has done over the course of his UFC career. They’re also undermining the skills, talents, and accomplishments of the three men that beat him during that time as well.
Context matters.
Saying, “Conor McGregor lost to Nathan Diaz at UFC 196” doesn’t tell the whole story. That specific combination of words suggests McGregor was paired off with the good, but never great scrapper from Stockton, California and got beat, which is the stripped down, short version of what happened, however there is much more to the story.
McGregor was preparing to face Rafael Dos Anjos for the lightweight title, and accepted a fight up in weight against Diaz on short notice when the Brazilian champion broke his foot and was forced out of the contest. He started extremely well, busting up Diaz with his patented precision striking before his gas tank hit empty and the durable cult favorite turned the tables and ultimately tapped him out.
The fact that their second encounter was an ultra-close battle illustrates that Diaz is a difficult matchup for McGregor, while McGregor evening things up takes some of the sting out of the whole “yeah, but he lost to Nate Diaz” argument for me.
As for the other two setbacks, if you want to penalize someone for losing to Khabib Nurmagomedov and Dustin Poirier, that’s cool, do you, but those are some mighty high standards you’re setting.
The real truth — as I see it — about McGregor is what the man himself said following his loss on Saturday night in Abu Dhabi: it’s really, really difficult to compete at the highest level in this sport, and doubly tough when you’re not fighting regularly.
UFC 257 was McGregor’s first appearance in a year and the first time he’d spent more than 40 seconds in the Octagon since October 2018. He’s been training for this bout for a number of months, but a single 10-week training camp isn’t going to shake off 12 months of accumulated rust.
Additionally, it’s not like McGregor has been living a spartan existence during that time — staying in the gym, eating clean, treating his body like a vessel solely built for inflicting punishment inside the UFC cage.
He’s young, rich, and famous. He owns a whisky brand, a fleet of cars, and has lavish tastes. His 12 months off is very different than just about any UFC competitor spending the same amount of time on the sidelines, and you don’t just get back to being the kind of fighter who can knock off Dustin Poirier in 10 weeks after several years where your sole focus wasn’t knocking off guys like Dustin Poirier.
Now, if you want to make the argument that McGregor’s last three outings — and specifically his losses to Nurmagomedov and Poirier — impact where he tops out in the “greatest of all-time” conversation, I’m all ears, but I think that conversation is flawed to begin with and impossible to have across generations because none of this stuff takes place in a vacuum.
Eras are different.
Age and injuries cause skills, instincts, and reactions to atrophy, which results in world-class fighters suffering losses that would have been unimaginable at the peak of their powers.
On November 12, 2016, Conor McGregor was the best fighter on the planet.
That night, at UFC 205 in New York City, he unleashed a masterful performance against Eddie Alvarez to claim the UFC lightweight title and do what he’d long said he would do, replicating his “Champ-Champ” status from Cage Warriors in the UFC.
That version of McGregor — sharp, focused, fully committed and locked all the way in — appeared capable of beating anyone in the 145- and 155-pound weight class that night, and nothing that has happened since should ever change that.
But that distinction doesn’t just stay with you forever, and especially not when you walk away for two years to box Floyd Mayweather Jr. and live a life of riches and fame.
And being the best fighter on the planet at a given moment also doesn’t necessarily mean you deserve consideration amongst the greatest fighters of all time either; that’s reserved for athletes who reside full-time in the “best fighter on the planet” neighbourhood, not those who rent a house on the block for 12-18 months and then pack up and move to Scranton.
Conor was incredible as a UFC featherweight — 7-0 with six stoppages, two belts, and additional wins over Poirier and Max Holloway, who would develop into a dominant champion himself.
He looked outstanding in his first lightweight appearance in the UFC against Alvarez at Madison Square Garden — lean and strong, but still quick, precise, and powerful. Had that guy stuck around, who knows how things would have played out, but he left in search of bigger challenges and greater pay days, and it will forever be an interesting “what if” to consider.
McGregor was 9-1 and a two-weight world champion through his first 10 UFC appearances, and he avenged that loss.
Since then, he’s lost to one of the most unstoppable forces we’ve ever seen in the sport and a former interim champion who has spent the last five years re-writing his own place in the historical rankings.
If you can look at that complete picture — the first 10 fights and the last three — and suggest that he was “overrated,” you have a very different way of measuring these things than me.
The other piece of this that has never and will never make sense to me is how Poirier’s tremendous performance against McGregor can be used to elevate his standing both now and in a historical context, while losing to Poirier is supposed to take the Irishman down a couple of pegs at the same time.
Just as McGregor was otherworldly and arguably the best fighter on the planet for two years (January 2015 to December 2016, though probably longer) but is certainly not that same guy now, it’s okay to re-evaluate where Poirier fits amongst the best lightweights on the planet and the best lightweights of all time following his incredible performance at UFC 257.
That’s what a performance like that should do — it should force people to re-think where he stands and make adjustments according to what we just saw, rather than simply stick to past evidence and refuse to change.
Poirier may not have been in the conversation for the greatest lightweights of all time prior to Saturday night, but he certainly has to be on the short list of the best active lightweights right now, which in turn has to move him up a couple positions in the hierarchy of 155-pound greats.
Ironically, I don’t actually like the growing fascination with instantly determining where a fighter stands in the annuls of history — we are way too quick to talk about a fighter’s legacy and then way too rigid when it comes to reassessing things as new evidence is presented.
We either don’t want to look like we rushed to judgment or don’t want to acknowledge that positions shift over time, but both of those things happen all the time in MMA and all we can do is react accordingly.
How could you not rethink where Poirier stands right now and historically in the lightweight division after what he did at UFC 257?
His only loss in the last four years and one month came to Nurmagomedov, who literally beats everyone; other than that, he’s gone 7-0 with 1 NC, earning stoppage wins over former champs Anthony Pettis, Eddie Alvarez, and McGregor, future interim champ Justin Gaethje, and decision victories over durable veteran Jim Miller, Holloway, the featherweight champion at the time, and Dan Hooker, the New Zealander tasked with welcoming Michael Chandler to the UFC over the weekend.
That’s as good of a four-year run as you’re going to get from anyone other than Nurmagomedov, so it’s only logical that it changes perceptions and his overall legacy as a fighter.
Legacies are defined over time, and while Poirier’s changed with this performance, it doesn’t mean that McGregor’s has to as well; they’re independent, not intertwined, and latter struggles do not erase earlier triumphs.
Conor McGregor was not overrated — he was a sublime talent and the best fighter on the planet for two years, even though he lost to a popular, but flawed fighter during that time.
And Dustin Poirier became one of the best lightweights to ever grace the Octagon on Saturday night, thanks to a career-defining triumph that sure seemed to surprise a lot of people that are now suddenly asking, “but was Conor really that good?”