Spot.IM is now known as OpenWeb.
By Ben Szurek
Every Sunday from September to February, football fans are treated to a buffet of NFL games, filled with the big hits, breakout plays, and coordinated drives that give football its fans in the first place. Basketball fans can count on even more regularity from October to May; baseball fans barely go a day without their sport during its 162-game-season. In Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), however, fans aren’t so lucky. Fights in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) – the largest and most popular MMA league – are few and far between, forcing fans to endure long waits as their favorite fighters ready themselves for their next big bout. But when the fights do happen, they are massive – seismic events, anticipated and chattered on for months in advance. Nowhere is this more evident than in the build-up for the next fight on the UFC docket: UFC 229: Khabib vs. McGregor.
Projected to be the highest-grossing fight in UFC history, UFC 229 will feature two of Ultimate Fighting’s biggest stars. First, the effervescent Conor McGregor. With 21 career wins and 3 losses under his belt, McGregor has been, for better or worse, the face of Ultimate Fighting for the past few years. The Irish fighter has achieved notoriety on account of his crossover fight with professional boxer Floyd Mayweather – which McGregor lost – and even more so for his antics. A great example of those antics came last April when McGregor, in a fit of rage, hurled a hand-truck through the windshield of a charter bus filled with fighters following a press event for UFC 223. Out of everyone in that group, of particular interest to McGregor was his upcoming opponent: Khabib Nurmagomedov.
With 26 wins and no losses, Khabib holds the best record in UFC history. He also enjoys a public persona entirely the opposite of Conor McGregor’s. This contrast was made particularly clear during September’s pre-fight press conference, in which McGregor – toting a bottle of his own, branded whiskey – railed against the (mostly) silent and stone-faced Khabib.
As anticipation for the fight grows in the coming days, so will the number of people adding their two cents to the conversation on who will lose and how badly. For the best insights into the world of the fight – and Ultimate Fighting more generally – head to MMAWeekly.com, a website specializing in everything Mixed Martial Arts. MMAWeekly is already known for their quality coverage from inside the world of professional fighting. But now, the addition of Community Pages – powered by Spot.IM – will give readers access not only to expert analysis, but also to the reactions of fans and aficionados across the world.
Spot.IM’s Community Pages channel the best content from MMAWeekly and social media into a single thread, where fans and readers can join the conversation through the unique comments section. That means that you can find everything you need to know about UFC 229 right here. To hear what people are saying about Conor McGregor, look here. And for a preview of what to expect from the defending-champion Khabib, go here.
