Hypothetical time: is this how a GSP comeback fight would look?

GSP wouldn't come back if he didn't look stellar in training.

BJ Penn hasn't looked good since his first fight with Frankie, which was in April 2010. Since then he went

Rematch with Frankie - looked awful, got shut out.
Rematch with Hughes - 21 second fight
Rematch with Fitch - looked decent for two rounds, beat the **** up in round three, draw.
Nick Diaz - beat up
Rory MacDonald - really beat up
Rematch with Frankie - beat up, dominated, total mismatch, stopped.

The last of those fights was in July 2014. It's not like he looked stellar, took a couple of years off & was suddenly not very good. BJ Penn hasn't been elite at MMA for a number of years. Plus I think GSP keeps himself in much better shape than does BJ.

GSP could potentially look like he hasn't missed in a beat in a comeback fight vs. Conor where he could use the size mismatch to lay on him the whole fight. Vs. Woodley it would be much more evenly matched, but I couldn't see him being dominated like that.

I haven't watched since the fight, but I thought BJ arguably won against Frankie. And I think he won R1 against Nick. Fighting Fitch and Rory was ******ed.

He arguably won the first fight with Frankie (I scored it for him & was surprised at the result at the time). Their second fight and third fights he clearly lost.

Are you guys forgetting that GSPs last fight was pretty difficult to watch, he took a TON of damage versus Hendricks, which itself was another "old school vs new breed" fight. I can't imagine that with the game progressing and GSPs additional years that things will be a cake walk for him.

Pre-USADA Hendricks but yeah, point stands.

Pre-USADA GSP too, if you want to make that argument...

He had a de facto draw v. a very good Johny Hendricks (who was a bad matchup). After winning almost every round in his previous 11 fights. That's way different to GSP coming back a couple of years after the third Frankie fight. I would expect GSP to be pretty elite whereas BJ imo is borderline good enough to fight in the UFC.

Perfect. Plus BJ is 38 and GSP is 35.

Though I don't think GSP would come back in great form. He was already kinda slipping a lil after his first knee surgery. Since then he had another major knee surgery. So two major knee injuries, 35, 3 years off, and was already starting to slip a lil.

I do think he could come back and compete still, especially since WW has kinda slipped a lot since USADA. Hendricks isn't good anymore, I think Robbie is gonna be the same way. Condit needs to retire. Rory in Bellator. Kelvin has to fight at MW now. Maia is 39.

That division is falling off a cliff.

I don't think GSP comes back unless it's to be champion or for a single huge fight. I think money fight or bust

he gets a monthly check from under armor. he wants to come back, but UFC can't make it worth his while to throw the under armor deal in the trash.

So Conors 1 hour interview on January 28th with Ariel Helwani...

Will be a PPV!

http://www.anexperiencewith.com/


lmao. Only 4 euros but still that's ridiculous. He better announce some interesting **** or I think a lot of people are gonna be mad. Or maybe not, many of his obsessive fan base probably just happy to listen to him breath.

I thought Ariel was joking about the PPV part lmao

just call him money mac

Guys - how well do you think McGregor-Diaz would sell in a boxing match? HBO PPV, venue in Vegas, nondescript undercard.

Pg,

Terribly.

Initial thoughts are that it wouldn't do that great, relatively of course. Would people really line up to watch two MMA fighters with mediocre boxing box? I feel this draws near 0% from the boxing crowd, a smaller percentage of MMA fans than they would get just fighting in MMA. I guess you'd get some extra buys for the spectacle? I don't know if Diaz is a big enough name outside MMA for mainstream to really care.

I'd def go with under a million. 700k-900k range?

Stim,

I agree with your reasoning, but based on that explanation your number feels high.

I haven't thought about it too much but tend to agree with the lower end of stim's reasoning. McGregor & Diaz's first two fights sold very well & neither were for a title - so people were buying the spectacle. IMO a lot of the people who would buy the rubber match if it was MMA 'to see who won the trilogy' would do likewise for boxing ... given the fight was well promoted.

I don't think it's likely to happen but when I see Nate had applied for a boxing license I was curious whether Conor + Nate combined would make more from fighting in the UFC or fighting in boxing. IMO it's pretty close.

If Nate and Conor tag team vs FM I will buy the ppv.

My initial thoughts were more on the 500k side but I have knack for underestimating casual/main stream fans interest in these types of things so just kind of inflated it due to that.

I guess if they were to co-promote it themselves, maybe even in order to jumpstart that business, they wouldn't need nearly the buys to come out with more cash than a UFC fight.

ETA: I don't know enough to even pretend to have a clue where that math needs to pencil out. Just an uninformed general idea.

Lol at anyone being mad if they pay 4 Euro and he doesn't make an interesting announcement.

He is a great talker and Ariel is a decent interviewer, plus they have a good chemistry I am sure them sitting down and just catching up having a conversation without any announcements or breaking news would be worth 4 Euros.

Did you ever see Ariels interview with him in Dublin a few years back? It was brilliant, I would have happily paid for it had it not been available for free on YouTube.