Jose Aldo KO
Of all his predictions, perhaps the most impressive of all is when Conor McGregor foresaw in surprising detail how, when and why he was going to finish Jose Aldo in their heavily hyped showdown at UFC 194 in 2015.
What made it all the more special was that McGregor’s prediction of a first round knockout finish seemed like wishful thinking given that Aldo was the long-time featherweight champion at the time, who was on a remarkable 18-fight winning streak and only had one loss (by submission) in his entire 26-fight career.
Nevertheless, McGregor was brimming with confidence ahead of the biggest fight of his life, and even started dropping hints about how Aldo was going to fail.
“I felt when we stared down, I felt his right hand was twitching, which was a subtle tell for me,” McGregor told Robin Black just days before the fight. “He’s ready to unload that right hand and I feel that could be a downfall for him. If he lets that right hand go, I will not be there.
“I simply enter the way I enter and that is it. They either over-extend or they shrink away.
“Either way, it is not good for them.
“I will create traps and dead space inside that Octagon. I will walk him into that dead space. All of a sudden he will be in danger.”
As it turned out that was exactly what happened as Aldo overcommitted on a right hand and left himself open to a perfectly placed left hook that KO’d him just 13 seconds into the fight.
Eddie Alvarez Finish
McGregor might be good at making predictions, but his own coach John Kavanagh stole his thunder prior to the UFC 205 lightweight title showdown with Eddie Alvarez in 2016.
For his part, McGregor had claimed that the fight would be over within 5 minutes, suggesting that Alvarez would be too easy to hit, though he did admit he had a chance to make it out of the first round as he was “a tough dude.”
In some respects he was right as he would go on to drop Alvarez three times in the opening round, but as he’d suggested, ‘The Underground King’s’ toughness bought him some more time.
However, Kavanagh had made his own prediction that proved to be eerily accurate, stating not only that McGregor would get the stoppage victory in the second round, but also that, ”I think around the eighth minute it will happen.”
As it turned out McGregor’s TKO stoppage of Alvarez came at 8.04mins.
