Conor McGregor shows off unique movement at UFC 194 open workouts

With the interim strap around his waist, Dublin-born McGregor is now gunning for the real belt. Jacare Souza and Yoel Romero meet in a middleweight bout that could determine the next challenger to the victor of Weidman vs. Rockhold, Demian Maia and Gunnar Nelson are featured in a pivotal welterweight bout, and Max Holloway will attempt to keep his run towards featherweight contention rolling along when he faces Jeremy Stephens.

Want some more numbers? He’s a significantly better version of Michael Bisping, and look how long “The Count” has stuck around headlining Fight Night events and being a star in the UFC.

3,668 – Days since Jose Aldo’s last loss, on November 26, 2005 versus Luciano Azevedo.

Aldo may not be able to knockout McGregor, but a fearless prediction has “Junior” winning via unanimous decision and unifying the UFC featherweight title belt.

“I’m not just going to beat Jose – I’m going to embarrass him in there”. I stay focused. We’ve all seen with Chris, he gets frustrated when you hit him, when things don’t go his way….

“But it will be wrapped up inside one (round)”.

Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo failed to complete their traditional face-off as the bitter featherweight rivals weighed in on Friday. Easier said than done when you compete in the most unpredictable of all sports and when you’re up against a pound-for-pound legend.

$9.2 million – The estimated live gate for UFC 194, second-biggest in company history behind UFC 129 in Toronto, which drew 56,000 fans paying $12.1 million.

“We could tell from the beginning that (McGregor) had the potential to be one of a kind”, UFC president Dana White said.

Meanwhile, McGregor has become the favorite to win the unification title bout against Aldo in Las Vegas at the coming weekend.

Translation: both hit hard, both strike quickly and both finish their opponents.

Even with all these awesome match-ups, UFC 194 is still firmly the Conor and Aldo show. This one will be a masterpiece.

“Conor McGregor said to me, ‘I’m going to run across that Octagon when that bell rings, I am going to drop bombs on this guy until I knock him out, which will be four minutes of the very first round, ‘” White said.

UFC gold is also on the line in the co-main event as middleweight kingpin Chris Weidman takes on former Strikeforce titleholder Luke Rockhold.

For more from UFC Fight Week in Las Vegas, check out Keyboard Kimura (theprovince.com/mmablog), the MMA blog of The Province, and be sure to follow both ESK (@spencerkyte) and Danny (@SUNDannyAustin) on social media. In 2015, he was UFC champ, the man everyone in the room wanted a selfie with and the man who everyone was getting ready to see square off with Jose Aldo. I’ve never trained so much in my whole life.

11 – Wins by KO/TKO or submission by Rockhold, tied for most in UFC/Strikeforce history. Weidman has a grappling base, but is extremely well rounded and has no glaring flaws in his game, along with a flawless record so far in his MMA career.

A lot of people like to bring up the fact that Money took that fight on short notice, but the same can be said of McGregor. If we’ve learned anything over the last 42 weeks it’s that you’d better expect the unexpected – the only thing that has remained predictable about this fight is its unpredictability.