UFC 194: What happened when Conor McGregor clashed with Jose Aldo over the Featherweight Championship?

UFC 194 took place on December 12, 2015 and was headlined by a mouth watering clash between long reigning Featherweight Champion, Jose Aldo and the "Notorious" Conor McGregor.

McGregor had won the interim title back at UFC 189 in July and was focused on winning the belt from Aldo, who had been champion for four years, since the UFC created the new title for him when the company bought out WEC, wherein he had reigned as Featherweight Champion for two years before that.

Aldo had not been defeated since November 2005, an entire decade of combat which encompassed 18 fights. Seemingly, then McGregor had it all to do.

However, 13 seconds into the title fight and it was all over. Aldo charged and attempted to hit a combination, McGregor leaned back and smashed him with a left hand that immediately rendered the champion unconscious.

Just like that and McGregor was the new Featherweight Champion.

Conor McGregor walks out of the Octagon as the new Featherweight Champion

The co-main event saw Luke Rockhold upset Chris Weidman to win the Middleweight Championship in an instant classic.

The momentum in this Championship fight ebbed and flowed between champion and challenger for the first three rounds of engrossing action before Weidman attempted an ill advised wheel kick that Rockhold avoided.

Rockhold took advantage and took the champion down, mounting him and pounding away with punches and brutal elbows.

Weidman's face was a crimson mask as Rockhold pummelled him relentlessly. Weidman might not have felt lucky at the end of that round but he should have been thankful that he was able to take the fight into the fourth.

Unfortunately, a few minutes sat in his corner was not enough to recover from the brutal onslaught he suffered and Rockhold, smelling blood took him down once more and hit yet more sick elbows until the referee mercifully ended the bout.

Your new Middleweight Champion: Luke Rockhold. There are not enough superlatives to explain how impressive a victory this was for the challenger to inflict a first ever defeat on Weidman.

It was a defeat that in truth, even in 2018, Weidman has never recovered from.

In another Middleweight encounter, Yoel Romero edged Ronaldo Souza on a Split Decision. It was a very tight call as the decision really could have gone either way with both men striking with leg kicks and punches impressively. Too close to call and really, the result perhaps should have been a Draw.

Max Holloway and Jeremy Stephens had eyes on the main event clash, knowing victory here but would put them into title contention.

Atypically, Holloway did not engage Stephens in a brawl and instead played it safe, working hard and picking Stephens apart with jabs and leg kicks, before taking it down to the ground. That game plan was enough to win the Unanimous Decision.

The final match of the main card saw Welterweights Demian Maia completely dominated Gunnar Nelson in one of the most dominating Decision wins you are ever likely to see. This was never a contest as Maia completely owned Nelson on the mat from start to finish.

That was UFC 194. An event that was all about the two main event title matches and won't be remembered for anything else.

Like UFC 193 that preceded it, UFC 194 was a monster pay per view attraction, yielding 1.2 million buys.