People forget Conor trained for a striker then all of a sudden had to face the best wrestler in the division on two weeks notice ..

No doubt, regardless of whether McGregor beats Aldo or not, these two will have a rematch

Question. How do you " win " a round if you get knocked out in that same round?? Paradox..

Chad before fight: I'm so happy I got this fight on short notice, I perform so much better in the octagon after having a short training camp :D I'm going to destroy Connor Chad after fight: I wish I had a full camp :'(

The dumb things people are saying 1 EARLY STOPPAGE 2 IF HE DIDNT GAS HE WOULDVE WON 3 HE DIDNT GET A FULL TRAINING CAMP 4 FIGHT WAS FIXED

Chad had a three week camp and Conor went from preparing for one of the best strikers to preparing the best wrestler and he was probably nursing an injury (He did not look as fit as he usually does). Both men didn't exactly fight under ideal conditions. If things had been perfect, who knows what would have happened? But things were not perfect for either fighter and Conor prevailed. Chad was not prepared for a striker like Conor and Conor was not prepared for Chads wrestling. Its extremely unfair to discredit this win.

PS those BRUTAL body shots (especially spinning back kicks) had Chad hurt. I feel that was a big contributor in the fight.

conor should have a 2 week training camp for aldo. let that sit in your minds for a second.

Respect to Mendes for taking the fight on short notice, but I can't stand when fighters take a u-turn after the fight and find excuses that they said wouldn't be a problem before.

I like how no one is talking about that fact that we have never seen Conor fight at his full potential. Talking shit with his hands down showing no respect to these guys. So the people that say "Chad was winning & would've continued had he not "gas-ed out" from not having a full training camp" were/are not paying attention to what's going on. Conor had Chad's midsection hurt in the 1st but didn't turn it on & let it go to the 2nd round. There's a reason he can call the round.. all he has to do is turn it on and they fall...

There both good fighters

"I stay in shape all year round" - you still gas out with a full training camp.

I want to see chad and frankie fight

UFC 189 was one of the most exciting fight cards I've seen for a while. All the fights were awesome!

People say that if chad had had a full camp it would be a completely different fight, the keyword there is fight, not outcome. Yes, mendes would of had better cardio and been more physically prepared, but also conor would have had a full training camp to prepare to fight a wrestler. In the build up to this conor said that to be a true champ you have to be able to take any fight on a moments notice, and he showed that he is true championship material. I can't wait for conor to get his hands on aldo and hopefully win, so we can see a McGregor v Mendes 2 where both men are 100% prepared for this fight. You shouldn't take anything away from either of them thought, for i believe it was equally as disadvantageous to the both of them. And that no matter the outcome, a rematch is definitely due, even before Edgar gets a shot.

Can't blame him. He's a fighter, not an actor. He must be laughing his way to the bank now.

All hail King McGreGOAT!!! Our featherweight champion!!

Regardless of whoever you support either way you can't deny it's edge of your seat stuff when Mcgregor vs. Mendes go at it. It's such a good clash of styles that you really don't know who will win considering they're specialties and what they are both good at. I'm more pumped to see this rematch than the eventual fight with Aldo to be honest.

i hate this full camp bs mendes is spewing. conor had the same amount of time to prepare for mendes, a completely different matchup than aldo. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. on top of that, conor was injured. it goes both ways.

both main and co main event had my heart pumping simply blew me away WOW just WOW

He definitely didn't win the second round. Lol.

I'm a McGregor fan but I became a fan of Mendes too after this fight. After the fight the guy did not make any excuses like a lot of fans seem to be doing. There's always excuses or reasons as to why a guy could have or should have won but Mendes showed he's a class act by not making any lame excuses and that's whey he's a successful fighter. I hope Conor does give him a rematch some day. Will be great to see "both" of them after fully preparing for each other.

He went 5 rounds in an absolute war with Aldo and here he gassed out after 10 seconds lol...very suspicious.

i love how chad is always smiling no matter the situation

As much as Chad is admiting that he lost, he's bitching even more about it. Conor knocked him the fuck out and yet he is standing there trying to make that fight look like a fluke. Makes me believe Conor would win the rematch even more. Everybody is forgetting that Conor would have a full camp preparing for a wrestler. The guys who are bitching about losses are the ones who have a weak mind.

No matter what happened. All points of view. No training camp for Chad to Conor accepting the fight without hesitation. Both men took risks and both men fought. Conor is a beast on the feet and Mendes is on the mat. My God Conor can take a punch. I'm a huge Conor fan but to see the respect after a tough fight was amazing. I know for a fact Mendes as got a lot of Irish fans now because of how gracious he was in defeat. And I am one of them. A true gent and great fighter.

I'm Irish, i support Mcgregor, but why are all these comments in here abusing Mendes the guy literaly mauled Conor and made a mistake and conor got a lucky break, i know mendes could beat conor down the line, he defo has the ground game and striking.

Staying in shape all year round and having a full training camp for a fight are two different things.

Great fight Chad, train with more pinpoint accurate strikers, get a full trainingcamp and fight Conor again.

He thought it was all a game. He said and I quote "it's perfect for me, I get a two week training camp, and I get to get in there whoop his ass and get a belt, this couldn't be any better for me" Now he says he definitely needed a longer training camp. Once again Conor's words live up to their name while the others just fall short of the truth, as always. Congrats Conor, true champ!

He fucked up when he tried to pass

I would love to see a rematch with these two but unfortunately I doubt it'll happen unless Mendes moves to 155. McGregor has fought at lighweight before (his last fight before the ufc) and he's known to make a significant weight cut to get to '45. I think that if Conor beats Aldo then he goes up right away or faces Edgar and goes up. I think Conor will beat Aldo, Edgar, Dos Anjos and then Pettis as Lw champ to finish his career as the biggest PPV draw in UFC history making major bank. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself but I think everyone can agree that Conor is a cultural icon already.

I just re watched the fight a few times in HD, actually Chad didn't do shit to Conor. All he could do is take him down a few times and throw elbows from the guard landing just one good elbow, Conor stuffed like 3 take downs and as soon as Chad tried to pass guard Conor got up and totally owned him on the feet.

I have found a new respect for him. Before fight i didn't like him. Now! I totally respect him. Proud. from Ireland Belfast.

Chad seems like a cool guy he did good in his fight vs conor

He deserves huge respect for the way he congratulated Conor straight away after the fight

Mendes fought well. He accepted the offer on short notice and showed up for the fight. Much respect!

Respect to both fighters for the class they showed at the end of that fight.

Gained a lot of respect for Chad extremely humble guy and a great fighter

Aldo will destroy Mcgregor

Massive respect to you, Chad. Can't wait for your next fight.

Gotta love Chad. Im a McGregor fan and I was glad to see him win. That being said, Mendes is a class act. He seems to be a good dude

I'd love to see a rematch. If he can control the octagon and avoid his punches he'd win, Chad has many chances to win against Conor. GSP and DJ have showed that it works greatly. I'm sure Chad can win. 6/10 or something, he could win.

Meg always gets right in there with all the good interviews ... right when it happens

total respect to both fighters.

All this time he was talking about how he's always fit and ready all year round how he keeps in shape and always training. Now that he's lose he's using two weeks as an excuse. McGregor said when mendes loses he's going to use that 2 weeks training as an excuse. Max holloway said it doesn't matter whether it's a 2 week camp or a 12 week camp good body shots are going to tire you out

During that second round mounting Chad was definitely in control, right before Connor's elbow started to land on the top of his head repeatedly and he started thinking "O shit! I better get out of this position before I am made asleep on this guy's belly!". Now guys, wouldn't it be embarrassing to be asleep on a guy's belly during a title shot? So you can't really blame the man for going for the submission, it wasn't really that comfortable being on top of Conor MacGregor for too long. :)

Incredible athlete

Man..this guy is a true sportsman..he got rocked..but still is humble.

Good job guys. I respect both fighters!

though he lost I bet he gained 1000's of new fans last night me being one of them! Respect!

Chad has the respect of a veteran. Even though he knew it was stopped prematurely, he didnt make any excuses or complaints, he took the loss on the chin and made up with mcgregor. Respect to chad

I think that more attention should be given to the first title fight, absolute war.

Chad should fight Frankie next. On the same card as Connor and Jose

" i felt like i was totally in control on the ground even when i took a riot of elbows to the top of my head " and cried to herb. #andnew

ufc 189 was so damn emotional. wtf.. wasn't ready for that

Chad Mendes is one of my fav fighters, this is so hard to watch. He's such a great guy. I personally don't think he made any excuses here beyond what actually happened, and like he said Conor was the better man.

Mendes is a gentleman, warrior and legend ...from a McGregor fan.

I don't particularly like his excuses but I love his enthusiasm regardless of the outcome

HUGE respect to both guys. Conor, man, he can take a punch like no one!! Unreal. Amazing composure, and brilliant precision. And Chad, on two weeks notice, great heart and attempt. In reality, you cannot blame Chad for saying he needs a full camp. You Mcgregor fans should appreciate that, he is admitting Conor needs a lot more than two weeks. You can also see the difference, he was gassed by the end of the first round in this fight, and against Aldo he went all in for five full rounds, didnt drop his hands once. Camps make a huge difference. Great fights all round.

Respect to Chad at the end of the day

Chad was so excited for this fight, but he didn't realize that his cardio wasn't just on point. Something like Velasquez vs Werdum. With a full camp, like he said, I don't know if he would have won but for sure it wouldn't be heavy breathing only after 3 min of the first round.

CHOO CHOO ALL ABOARD THE EXCUSE TRAIN!

Honestly it doesn't matter who was winning rounds. Conor fights never go the distance. The real question is who was inflicting the most damage? The result speaks for itself

We'll see what happens when Chad had a full training camp. Specially Connor is mentioned that he only had 2 weeks, Chad did to. And biggest factor is that Connor had his stamina on point, when Chad didn't had the time for that. He lost the fight on that anyway, otherwise he didn't gas out and wouldn't get TKO'd. Curious what that fight gonna look like, both have their strong points where they can end each other with. (Doesn't take away Connor for sure hurt Chads midsection in the first, Chad didn't let him capitalize on that in the second).

Edgar vs Mendes would be interesting

0:35 "I gotta get back in the kitch- the gym..."

Chin up Chad...you will be back. Best of luck from the irish!

Chad has all my respect, clearly the better man

Great guy and great mentality.

Come on Chad be a man and give conor some real respect , u took him down and got some good shots in but his ground game was way better than u thought and when u gave him a chance he popped up like a jack in the box and hit u so fast u didn't see the shots coming ,them spinning kicks to the mid section hurt u as well, good job Chad but not good enough my friend

After watching this fight I'm even more confident that Jose will win. Chad exposed McGregor's weaknesses and pretty much gave Jose a blueprint to work with. Jose will be in good shape for his fight, hopefully. If Chad can almost beat Conor on a two week camp I think Jose will win after having his full camp. It might not be easy, but I think Jose will keep his title. I'm not counting Conor out either, but if I were to bet money it would be on Jose.

Damn, Aldo, mendes, edgar, and now mcgregor?! Jesus, good luck cracking into that top 4 haha. So hype!!!

to be honest it looked like mendez was still defending himself, 3 seconds left in the second round of a championship fight..stop prematurely if i say so..

Is happy to be able to fight on short notice. Is sad to have lost on short notice.

I was rooting for Conor but much respect to Mendes. Classy guy who fights with heart and grit. Hope he's a champ one day.

Told everyone the Boxer with National Amateur Championship background pedigree was going to give Mendez a Boxing 101 lesson and nobody wanted to listen.

Amazing fight, conor had the biggest test to date, id love to see a rematch between conor and chad both with a complete training camp

Connor has zero take down defense and no ground game. It looked like mendes threw the fight, or had the mother of all brain farts. Mended with a full camp would've won a decision. McGregor doesn't stand a chance against Aldo, and that's obvious.

I hate the training camp excuse. Connor had just as much time to prepare for mendes as he did for connor. Stop making that excuse, he's a fighter who should be training year round cuz he doesn't know when Dana will call him. If mendes trained year round, he would have been in shape and wouldn't have quit at the end of the 2nd

The famous "no full camp" excuse.

2 weeks notice is not an excuse. The guys knew what they were getting themselves into while accepting the fight. Chad said he took the risk and came up short. Conor won fair and square. However, in the future, if Chad were to get a full camp, the outcome could change.

I think he's forgetting the fact that McGregor didn't really have a full training camp himself in terms of preparing for his style, It went from day to night in terms of preperation. With a full training camp preparing and fine tuning his wrestling and take down defense after countless practices McGregor is sure to evolve to an entirelly different level and the rematch would lead to the same result. The bottomline is, Mendes can't hurt Conor on the feet - He caught him with some huge punches and McGregor didn't even flinch. These are the same punches that retired Ricardo Lamas and floored/busted-up Jose Aldo. That being said, McGregor would destroy Aldo from what we saw last night in his performance against Mendes.

To the wastebasket you go mini mendes. You blew it.

WHERE ARE ALL THE DOUBTERS PLEASE STAND UP!!

It was awesome to see respect between both in the end. I really thought that Chad would win but I think honestly Conor's spinning back kicks hurt him and I don't think he's really able to admit it. I've had spinning kicks land on me by guys that I outweigh by as much as 50 lbs. It takes a lot out of you for sure and Conor got a flat connect with one or 2 of them - your body can totally seize up - it doesn't look like much but I wouldn't be surprised if Mendes does an MRI and sees some cracked ribs. I honestly don't think it was the gas tank - I mean all things being equal Chad's always in shape and to be gassed by the second round just isn't right considering his actual output. I mean it wasn't like they spent 2 whole rounds wrestling against the cage... he had a lot of time to recover while he was in Conor's guard in both rounds so whether he likes to admit it or not the body shots must have been a factor. For those that complain the stoppage was too early etc... that's just insane... Chad was down on the ground turtled up and covering his head taking unanswered shots. Do you think Herb should have let him finish the round in that position and then go - oh there's a round 3? WTF? I guarantee you everyone would be like - what? Conor got robbed! You gotta look at it from Herb's POV (and we all know Herb is the best in the business) - did Chad look himself before he ended up in that position? Did he look like there was the remotest chance he'd reverse that or would it have been a case of just waiting taking unanswered shots for the next 15 seconds? It wasn't like he just got caught like Robbie Lawler did. No, Chad didn't look like himself. He was backing up - flat footed and he'd taken a bunch of strikes in the 20 seconds before then that he wasn't able to avoid or even look like he was going to avoid or block. It was a fair stoppage. Who want's to see Chad take some more shots for the benefit of the fanboys who just want an excuse. Chad made the big mistake of going for a submission when he should have just ground him down Randy Couture style... simple as. I'm worried that Conor needs to improve his TD defence and he really didn't show that much off his back in terms of even threatening a submission. He seemed content to wait for his moment to stand up - but glancing or not - taking shots on the bottom doesn't seem smart. If he plans to go up a division and face people like Nurmagomedov... it really felt like both Conor and Chad were affected by the weight of the occasion and the emotions. Conor looked like he took just crazy risks that he's not taken with other people - I mean his first shot is a flying knee from across the cage a la Cat Zingano style??? He never settled in - he was nowhere near as calm and calculated as he was vs Denis Siver for example. So there's arguments on both sides to say neither looked 100% right...

Chad main problem is that in his fights he is not known for passing the guard. I think the blueprint to beat conor is to take him down, pass the guard, and pound him out. I think the worst match up that could happen to him would be if he moves up to 155 and has to fight khabib. 155 is his natural weight, but I think he would lose to a hand full of people their. Not hating, I like Connor, but I think the blueprint has been set to beat him, because he has no takedown defense, nor a threat of submissions from the bottom.

Mendes get's much respect. Those body shots cut his legs off. I guess the hype isn't just hype...

chad thought he had KO power. Now he has learned what true KO power means.

Will someone please interview Faber just wanna see his face now lol

At LEAST Mendes is willing to put Conor up there with him and Aldo and Edgar. Even though Conor deserves to be above them all.

Mendes says he needs to unwind and go hunting. I guess shooting a helpless animal with a gun will make Mendes feel more like a man again after getting KOed.

I thought it was gonna be a boring fight, and then they stood up. I didn't think Chad would had out in 2 rounds which was really surprising.

Chad stares at the ground the whole time He made so much money under the table He's helping turn the ufc into a clown show That blond in the background is more incredible than any of the fights

Featherweight the best division in the UFC by far

I never liked Chad Mendes till his Fight with Conor Mcgregor... I was always going for Mcgregor but there are plenty of us here in Australia that are now fans of Mendes. Respect

Those early kicks to Chad's gut killed him. 2 weeks notice obviously didn't improve his chances but Chad didn't JUST gas, he got tooled on the feet and couldn't seal the deal even though he had Conor on the ground.

For the goats who are talking about "Full training camp won't matter". Let me tell you that it is one of the main factors in any fight. Without having a full training camp and solid cardio workout you will probably be gassed out in the first round and be knocked out. Without a solid cardio you will be tired and your shots will lose power and accuracy. You do get gassed out from being on the ground. Yes if Chad had full training camp the result would be different, because he will be focusing on striking, and Cardio, and Chad didn't have any of them. Chad knew that he was going to lose, you can even see T.J Dillashaw's reaction, he wasn't surprised. First round was totally for Chad (According to UFC point table) it was 10-8 for Chad. The Second round was 10-9 for Chad till he got knocked out. Herb Dean did stop it early, you can re-watch the video and you can notice that Chad's leg was hooked and he could defend himself, and it was after the 10 sec notice. You can only stop the fight by TKO if the guy is taking a beating and he is not protecting himself, He is almost out and his hands dropped, or he simply got injured. Herb did a mistake by stopping the fight because Chad's leg was hooked to the Cage which means he wasn't out, his arms were protecting his Head and Jaw well. he didn't even get injured, he wasn't out or almost out altho he gassed out. I think Chad is better than Conor in general but you gotta give credits to Conor for winning the fight.

All I know is they mcgregor isn't going to talk shit about mendes anymore, he was pummeling him

Chad should fight Edgar or Holloway in the next 2-3 months to maintain Top Contender status, trying to get a rematch is useless at this stage