McGregor quickly drops Aldo at UFC 194

It was really not a fight.

“I don’t care. Wherever the fight goes I’m gonna end this fight”, said the Brazilian.

That’s the kind of rhetoric we’ve come accustomed to when listening to Conor McGregor speak about his upcoming opponent Jose Aldo.

The fight that’s more than a year in the making will finally take place Saturday. McGregor’s emphatic TKO set up a title fight between the two biggest superstars of the sport.

“He is already beaten”, McGregor said. His fall to Conor McGregor took 13 seconds.

“I can even believe this is real”.

Aldo entered the cage as champion while McGregor arrived as interim title-holder for a win over Chad (Money) Mendes while Aldo was out injured.

‘The only time I wasn’t relaxed and I pretended to be relaxed was my first fight with Anderson Silva, ‘ he said.

“It’s Luke’s night”, he said.

The impact gave us a new middleweight champion of the world and his name is Luke Rockhold (15-2).

Rockhold found a regular home for his thunderous body kicks as the fight progressed, and he was more than holding his own in the scrambles and grappling exchanges. “I come to fight, and this fight will be a performance”.

It was Aldo’s first loss in the UFC and only the second of his career; his last defeat was in November 2005.

Aldo could say little when he was injured in training shortly before he was originally scheduled to meet McGregor in July, scrapping an elaborate promotional campaign and providing more fodder for his challenger. “I thought the fight was going to be stopped in the third round, I actually wasn’t sure if it was stopped or if the round ended”. In January, McGregor earned a title shot by knocking out Dennis Siver in the second round in UFC 183 at TD Garden in Boston. After that five-round Mendes fight, which could have arguably went to him, you look like you’ve had a stroke.

Cuban-born Yoel Romero scored a crashing knockdown with a spinning right-handed fist early, the survived a late charge from Jacare Souza and escaped with a split decision in their three-rounder. I am going to rip him limb from limb’.

Demian Maia, another former jiu-jitsu world champion ranked sixth among welterweight contenders, outgrappled No. 12 Gunnar (Gunni) Nelson – a black belt himself – while administering plenty of ground-and-pound pain along the way to a lopsided 30-26, 30-25, 30-25 decision.