It’s official – Conor McGregor will fight Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title in the main event of UFC 205 in New York City on November 12th.
“This is the fight the fans wanted, and I’m excited that our very first event at Madison Square Garden will be headlined by Eddie Alvarez defending the lightweight title against Conor McGregor,” Dana White told ESPN. “This card has three world title fights and is the best card in UFC history.”
It had looked for a time as if the fight wasn’t going to happen, with White having gone as far as to publicly state that it would be Khabib Nurmagomedov, not McGregor who would get a chance to fight the lightweight champion.
In hindsight that appears to have likely just been a negotiating tactic, which won’t go down well with Nurmagomedov, who had been elated that he was finally getting his shot at the title.
Nonetheless, despite the UFC having assigned a number of high profile bouts to the historic event, which will mark the promotions first ever in NYC, there had been a general sense among both fans and the media that up until this point that the line-up wasn’t living up to expectations.
With the sports biggest, most bankable star now on-board however, that all changes, and we’re now faced with what looks to be a stellar card that has a real chance to rival the record 1.7 million buys that McGregor’s rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 202 delivered back in August.
With McGregor Vs Alvarez on-board there’s now no less than three title fights fronting the show, with welterweight champion Tyron Woodley set to defend his belt for the first time against Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson, while woman’s strawweight champion Joanna Joanna Jędrzejczyk is also going up against Karolina Kowalkiewicz.
Added to that already potent combination will be a number of other notable bouts including Rashad Evans middleweight debut against Tim Kennedy, Donald Cerrone Vs Kelvin Gastelum, Frankie Edgar, Thiago Alves Vs Jim Miller and Miesha Tate Vs Raquel Pennington.
The final piece in the puzzle could be former middleweight champion Chris Weidman Vs Yoel Romero, which was known to have been targeted for the event, but as yet has not been officially confirmed.
