The countdown is on to UFC Worldwide Struggle Week, as the most important week of the 12 months for MMA followers takes heart stage in Las Vegas subsequent week.
I’ve labored UFC Worldwide Struggle Week a number of occasions through the years as credentialed media, and it’s at all times one of many highlights of my working 12 months. It’s additionally served up some magic moments down the years.
My first UFC Worldwide Struggle Week got here again at UFC 189 in 2015, the place I used to be on press row to witness McGregor capturing the interim featherweight title towards Chad Mendes on the MGM Grand. Sinead O’Connor and Aaron Lewis sang McGregor and Mendes to the Octagon with unbelievable reside performances, and the ambiance, with the world filled with Irish followers, was unforgettable as McGregor weathered an early storm from Mendes to ultimately cease him late within the second spherical and declare his first UFC title.
The craziest struggle week ever?
Then, one 12 months later, got here the only craziest struggle week I’ve ever skilled, with three UFC occasions in three days on an enormous week that culminated with UFC 200.
First, Eddie Alvarez spectacularly dethroned Rafael dos Anjos to seize the undisputed light-weight title on the Thursday evening, then Joanna Jedrzejczyk retained her undisputed girls’s strawweight title with victory over Claudia Gadelha on the Friday evening.
That arrange UFC 200 itself, which had gone by a rollercoaster week when it was introduced to us as media at a hastily-arranged press convention that the headline bout between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier was off on account of Jones’ failed drug take a look at.
The ladies’s bantamweight title struggle between defending champion Miesha Tate and Amanda Nunes was bumped as much as the headline spot, and on that particular one-off gold Octagon canvas, “The Lioness” captured her first UFC championship belt by way of first-round submission.
That complete week, bouncing from media days to open exercises to weigh-ins, then again once more, with that Jones-Cormier presser thrown in for good measure, stays the craziest week of my profession protecting this sport, but it surely additionally confirmed how remarkably agile the UFC was, and nonetheless is, as an organization as they someway saved all the things on observe, regardless of the chaos that week.
Return of ‘The Mac’
That was the most important UFC Worldwide Struggle Week ever, but it surely appears there’s at all times an enormous speaking level when the UFC’s huge week of preventing festivities rolls round, and this 12 months isn’t any exception, with Irish MMA celebrity Conor McGregor set to make his long-awaited return to motion at UFC 329 on July 11.
McGregor faces off towards Max Holloway in a rematch that sees each males in very totally different locations of their careers from after they first fought. In that first assembly at UFC Boston in August 2013, they have been each highly-rated rising stars of the promotion, with McGregor rising because the unanimous choice victor. However this summer time, they’ll face off having captured a number of titles between them, with their respective careers already positive to land them each within the UFC Corridor of Fame.
For McGregor, it’s the prospect to reignite his preventing profession, together with his struggle coming 5 years after he sustained a horrific damaged leg in his trilogy struggle with Dustin Poirier at UFC 264. For Holloway, in the meantime, it’s a chance so as to add to his legacy and probably place himself for an additional rematch, together with his previous BMF rival and newly-crowned undisputed light-weight champion, Justin Gaethje.
It’s a marquee struggle for a marquee occasion, with UFC Worldwide Struggle Week historically delivering the most important week of the 12 months for UFC followers.
Scorching on the heels of the current UFC Freedom 250 occasion on the White Home lower than a month in the past, it’s one other big event for UFC followers, with the annual week-long program of occasions, together with an enormous fan expo, UFC X, at Las Vegas Conference Heart, delivering an important expertise for followers of the game.
However the huge attraction, after all, is the massive struggle card itself, and whereas there’s the weird lack of any title fights on the cardboard – a rarity for a UFC numbered occasion – the presence of McGregor vs Holloway ensures that big-fight really feel will likely be turned as much as 11 by the point “Hawaiian Kickboxer” hits the audio system for Holloway’s walkout on struggle evening.
