The rise of Conor McGregor in the last few years is unlike anything that has ever been seen in the UFC before. His climb to prominence has been unmistakable and is hard not to pay attention to. There are a variety of reasons for that.
First off, McGregor’s fighting style is incredibly unique. His crisp striking, concise hits and track record of clean knockouts proves just how vicious a striker he is.
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Secondly, it’s his boisterous personality that is yet another unique trait he owns and has perhaps single-handedly gained him much of the success and acceleration to prominence that he has attained.
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But what makes his personality even more engaging is his use of mental warfare. His ability to dig into the minds of his opponents prior to their clash sometimes wins him fights before he even steps into the cage.
We have seen this over and over from McGregor and the former two-weight world champion earned himself the nickname “Mystic Mac” for correctly predicating the demise of his opponents. For a long period of time, these predictions were freakishly accurate, but how on point has McGregor been in predicting his UFC finishes?
Here are Sportskeeda’s Top 5 times “Mystic Mac” got his predictions wrong.
#1 UFC 189: McGregor vs. Mendes
After Jose Aldo failed to keep the date with the Irishman for the UFC featherweight title, McGregor agreed to square off with late replacement Chad Mendes for the interim title at UFC 189.
Mendes had bickered about McGregor in the media before, criticising his lack of grappling. The Team Alpha Male member felt that he could be the one to expose the future champion.
Also read: Mystic Mac: Why Conor McGregor will go down as one of the best
When promotion began for the fight 11 days out, McGregor made a bold prediction stating that by four minutes into the first round of this interim featherweight title fight, “Chad will be unconscious.”
This part of McGregor’s prediction was wrong, however, since Mendes lasted the entirety of the first round and nearly the second as well. The Irishman finally ended up finishing Mendes via TKO with three seconds left in the second round.
Regardless, Mystic Mac’s predictability meter did end up working in his favour financially. Prior to the bout, he had bet Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta $3 million that he would finish his featherweight opponent in the second round, which he did!
#2 UFC 202: Diaz vs. McGregor 2
After the featherweight champion spent months and months recuperating from his first UFC loss at the hands of Diaz, he made it his mission to redeem his record and face the Stockton native once again. The two had first met in what would be one of the worst nights of McGregor’s UFC career.
In this particular fight, however, we saw McGregor slightly reinvented, calculated and incredibly intelligent in his aggression towards Diaz. The fight was a fine-tuned contest between two high-level athletes that saw plenty of blood, heart and determination.
For this rematch, McGregor made it very clear that his prediction for this fight was that he would knock Diaz out in the second round. Unfortunately, he was wrong once again. However, he did knock the former welterweight down twice in the second round, with Diaz later claiming that being knocked down, for him, was a “tactic”.
The Irishman ended up winning the fight via majority decision..
#3 UFC 205: Alvarez vs. McGregor
UFC 205 was a card of colossal proportions, headlining McGregor’s long-awaited chance at becoming the UFC’s first ever two-weight world champion.
It was a goal that he had made very clear ever since he first arrived in the UFC and it was something he eventually achieved over the course of a short period of time. In order to get there, the featherweight champion met the Underground King and then-reigning UFC Lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez at Madison Square Garden.
Needless to say, the night was epic in fights and in history as McGregor ended up realising his dream of holding two belts in two weight classes. But before the fight, the Notorious one had predicted that he would knock out Alvarez within one round.
His prediction was not far off, in fact, he may have been able to do it, were Alvarez a less skilled and weathered fighter.
Alvarez felt the power of McGregor’s striking in the first round and his loss seemed inevitable in the second, with McGregor landing a brilliant combination of punches to win the Lightweight title via a second round TKO.
Despite not getting his prediction correct, McGregor was satisfied all the same.
#4 UFC Fight Night 59: McGregor vs. Siver
This fight for the Irishman was said to be his gateway to a confirmed shot at Jose Aldo for the featherweight title.
Being only his fifth fight in the UFC, that confirmation didn’t sit well with plenty of MMA purists, but McGregor kept his predictions and clean victories coming with the German as his next obstacle to tackle. In this fight, McGregor predicted that he didn’t see Siver making it past the first minute with him in the cage.
Although the outcome of the fight was a brutal loss for Siver, McGregor was actually off the mark again with this prediction.
The 28-year-old dictated the pace and control of the fight the entire time, but instead of getting finished within one minute, Siver held out and was finally dropped halfway through the second round with a left hand by McGregor, he was then finished him with strikes.
Regardless of his prediction being wrong, it was this performance that confirmed McGregor’s next fight and eventual claim to the featherweight title.
#5 UFC 196: McGregor vs. Diaz
Interestingly, it was after this fight that the Irishman’s mystic powers began to fade. Perhaps it’s a coincidence, perhaps not. But this fight was his most off the mark prediction in his UFC career, especially because it didn’t go his way.
At UFC 196, McGregor was slotted to face Rafael Dos Anjos for the UFC lightweight title but only two weeks before the fight, the Brazilian pulled out with a dire foot injury. In his place, Nate Diaz stepped up without much of a training camp and really no hard conditioning to aid in his ability to succeed in this fight.
McGregor had predicted that he would knock Diaz out within the first round for this fight, but he was wrong in not only the result but also the method.
What happened, instead, was a result that created one of the most exciting and entertaining rivalries in modern MMA. Diaz, on 10 days notice, submitted McGregor in the second round via rear-naked choke, snapping the Irishman’s perfect UFC record and 15-fight win streak.
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