McGregor never defended a title

I noticed a while ago that Conor has never defended a title despite being a 2 time 2 weight world champion, anyone else? is he not motivated to defend and only to conquer? Tyron Woodley next?

For Conor

He's defended the mcgregor belt several times. It's the big $ belt. He lost it Nate but won it back. 

But yeah that stat is accurate. In fact he did the same thing in Europe. He was a two weight world champ but then got signed to the UFC before defending. I think that's where he got the idea

McGregor's accomplishments are incredible, but I do think he needs to get to defending his new belt, more than seeking super-fights at this point. Defenses of a title are the most important feat a fighter can accomplish when considering the pound for pound, greatest of all time list. It will hurt his legacy if he never does it. 

Conor is all about the money. I get professional sportspeople have a short 'working' life and I don't resent them being getting paid. Champions get PPV points, so they are better financially rewarded than publicly announced, it's the guys at the bottom who are really getting screwed.

The truth is fighters are only doing this because they believe there are financial benefits to it, so either the UFC need to disincentivise unwanted OR preferrably incentivise wanted behaviours. As the saying goes you get more flies with honey than vinegar.

To me though real champions don't cherry pick their opponents.

Sidenote: On the MMA Beat this week Luke Thomas mentioned sfan posted on his facebook wall that they enjoyed "Interim" title fights because they get to see 2 of the best fighters in the same division fight each other.

if he fights for the welterweight title next and wins his legacy will never be beaten in the history of the universe

McGregor is oportunist, taking only fight he shoul win. He will never face Khabib!

McGregor vs Nick Diaz @ 170 & Aldo vs Nate Diaz @ 155

either on the same card or back to back

@bigj

That may be so, but it is a dangerous trend he is starting.  Not because I don't think fighters shouldn't try and make as much as they can.  But he is making it where the top guys in divisions aren't fighting each other any more, which makes the point of divisions worthless, driving the sport to go more down the slippery slope boxing went.

Hornet, they will keep doing this site
so they can make money.

@Hornet, he's not starting a trend because every other fighter on the roster lacks the initial requirement to join the trend ... sell 1M PPV buys.

They're all asking for fights, trying to "get the money fight", but guess what, Woodley vs. Wonderboy II is in the works for 209 (not Woodley vs. Conor, nor Woodley vs. Bisping), so is Khabib vs. Ferguson.

Bisping will fight Romero, Garbrandt will fight TJ.

So where's the trend? The only thing that's trending is that you get more wiggle room the more leverage you have. That's not a trend, that's an absolute truth that's been known since the beginning of time. The only thing that's changed is that the fighters (or fighter) that have the leverage over the UFC finally know what to do with it.

@yoss

I agree. No one else is in mcgregor'S zip code when it comes to ppv buys on the men's side. I would venture a guess that Ronda has lost her shine, but Conor is always good for a million. So no other fighter has leverage. If a champ doesn't want to fight, fine, make an interim belt. The UFC offers the fight and the fighter can refuse. But they're losing out in a paycheck. 

Excellent replies, I agree with most..

I would like to add to the main topic of his title defenses that there isn't anyone at FW that can really touch him there aside from Aldo. I've personally argued and felt that Aldo should get a rematch time after time, but after watching what Conor had done since then as well as always feeling that McGregor's true business in MMA is in the LW division, I don't really hold it against him.

In my eyes he needs to clear out the LW division before another super fight and so should the FW/ WW champs.

No more gifted money fights...

It's pretty sad that one of the greatest achievements in MMA is by way of defeating Aldo, tapping out to Nate, squeaking out a majority dec over Nate and then defeating Alvarez.

* Edited at 01.08.2017, 12:18 PM ET *

If Wonderboy wins the welterweight title at 209, alongside Khabib winning the interim lightweight belt, my gut is that Conor would push to fight Wonderboy first. However, eventually Conor vs. Khabib is going to be a huge fight.

Either guy would beat him so I think he would avoid both. 

I don't understand why most of people look so confident with the fact Khabib would beat Conor.. For sure it's a dangerous match up for him but come on, his hands and movements are on another level.

Agree with @Alex here... if McG lands a punch as clean as Michael Johnson did on Khabib the fight will be over. No one is as accurate as he is at 45 or 55, or maybe even the entire UFC.

Michael Johnson never had Khabib rocked in the first. In that exchange, he got hit with a right hook, and then a left hooked his arm and threw him off balance. Khabib has some of the best striking defense in the UFC, per fightmetric. If he got Conor down once, the fight would practically be over for him. Conor's cardio would begin to fail him, and he would take a lot of damage while he was down there. 

* Edited at 01.09.2017, 12:46 PM ET *

Khabib for sure have some good defense striking (similar to how Maia use his striking) but he's not unhitable and never face a guy like Conor. The same can be said for Conor that never face a grappler like Khabib. Both of them have a confort zone, it's a typical striker vs grappler match. Anyway, i think it's hard to place your money safely on this one.
PS: Conor's movement can really make the difference and he can easely punish Khabib if he gets to close.

@yoss

I mean in terms of fighters finding an excuse to not fight who they are supposed to.

I know what you meant ... but those fighters haven't noticed that they're not bringing enough to the table for them to be a part of the trend, therefore no trend.

the fact that they're all trying to wiggle out of certain fights (Bisping, Woodley, Garbrandt), wiggle into more money (Ferguson) or wiggle into who the **** knows what at this point (Aldo) by trying to manufacture different fights is cute, but none of them actually have a say in the matter. For every single one of them it's "fight who you're told to or **** off, we've got enough belts for everyone".

Woodley actually told Wonderboy that if he didn't treat him with more respect he'd "give the shot to Maia" ... dude has yet to understand that he doesn't give shots. The UFC will tell him who he's fighting or strip him and let Maia and Wonderboy fight for the belt. No one wants to see him vs. GSP. No one wants to see him vs. Bisping. Barely anyone wants to see him in a title fight at all no matter who the opponent is.

I thought Bisping was a bit more of a sell until I saw him numbers against Hendo (which is more or less the most marketable fight Bisping can get at this point that's marketed on his selling power and not him piggybacking on someone who's more marketable.

Here's the thing, fighters suddenly understanding they can actually try and manufacture their career path instead of it being forced on them is actually a good thing. But now they need to get a grasp on the other part of it. They need to be willing to put more on the line in order to get there. Conor outs himself out there every single time. From day one he made every single one of his fights a "win or be humiliated" situation. He made every single one of his opponents want to beat him more than he's ever wanted to beat anyone in his life. He takes risks, he's always trying to one-up his last fight (Rousey did that too by the way, and guess what, she blazed her way to the top and became a "special treatment" athlete). Those guys aren't willing to do step 1 but they're trying to jump straight up to step 10. 

Well, that's just not going to happen so I wouldn't worry about any trends starting because none of those fighters are willing to "put in the wook" to get to the position.

Every single one of them's going to end up fighting the opponent they're given. And guess what, barring Conor wanting to challenge for the 170 belt, If Woodley beats Wonderboy, he's fighting Maia. You can take that to the bank (he's too dumb to understand that Maia's actually a pretty good stylistic matchup for him, but that's another story).

Cody will fight TJ (Somewhere between March and June)
Woodley will rematch Wonderboy (most likely UFC 209)
Bisping will be sacrificed to Romero (April-May)
Ferguson will fight Khabib (most likely UFC 209)
Aldo will fight Holloway (I'd say around March-April)

Barring injuries, every single one of those fights is going to happen. None of these guys are needle-movers (which says a lot about who buys the larger bulk of PPVs and how this format is so outdated because every single one of these guys is an amazing fighter and should be watched by millions).