Conor McGregor well and truly earned his ‘Mystic Mac’ nickname seven years ago when he knocked out Jose Aldo to become the undisputed UFC featherweight champion.
Notorious made good on his promises to quickly stop Diego Brandao and Dustin Poirier but that was no surprise as he was much better than both men at the time.
However, most people scoffed when he promised to do the same thing to the long-time 145lb king who he expected to over-extend on his punches and leave himself open for big shots.
McGregor said ahead of UFC 194: "I see him overreacting, overextending and then being knocked out unconscious"
While this could be viewed as a title challenger talking himself up, footage taken in his dressing room moments before his fight with Aldo, shows the Irishman was preparing to make his prediction come true.
Bouncing around on the mat of his dressing room, McGregor shadow boxes while his teammates and coaches watch on before he stepped back and threw a short, sharp left hook.
It was the same left hook he landed on Aldo when he came out all guns blazing for their December 2015 fight, only to be knocked out cold in just 13 seconds by the man who went on to conquer the UFC.
McGregor became the biggest star in MMA by making history as the first dual-weight UFC champion by ruthlessly dethroning lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez in 2016.
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Before this, the 34-year-old shared a two-fight rivalry with Nate Diaz that proved that even when things don’t go as predicted, he’s still able to muddle through.
McGregor was tapped out in two rounds when he first fought Diaz in a short-notice welterweight fight before rematching the fan favourite and outworking him over five rounds.
Since then, he’s become one of the richest men in sport through a lucrative crossover fight with Floyd Mayweather and a wildly successful whiskey business that was sold for $600million last year.
In recent years, he’s struggled for form and fitness. McGregor is currently sidelined and has been since July 2021 due to injury but is expected to make a comeback in 2023.
He'll be hoping to snap his two-fight losing skid, which came against Poirier, a man he so easily dealt with during his heyday but was no match for in 2021.
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