Conor McGregor showed an incredible amount of heart and courage to come from behind and beat Chad Mendes in the main event of UFC 189.
Back in 2015, McGregor was on the verge of becoming a breakout star in the UFC, with his cocky attitude and exciting style of fighting proving immensely popular with the MMA fanbase.
But when he came up against Mendez, he seemed to have met his worst possible matchup at least on paper.
A two-time NCAA Division I All-American, Mendez is widely regarded as one of the best wrestlers in mixed martial arts.
Fighting out of Sacramento, California, he spent his entire career training at Team Alpha Male before retiring from MMA in 2018.
Prior to that fight, he had won four of his last five fights including knockout victories over Darren Elkins and Ricardo Lamas.
McGregor, meanwhile, was on a 13-fight winning streak stretching back to November 2010.
He was originally supposed to challenge then-UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo for the title at UFC 189, but after Aldo was forced out due to injury, he faced Mendez for the interim 145lbs belt instead.
Check out the video below…
Conor McGregor was just unstoppable back then pic.twitter.com/TyKYSRVICp
User @TheArtofWar6 posted a short highlight clip from the fight and wrote: “Conor McGregor was just unstoppable back then.”
The video has been retweeted more than 1,400 times, liked by almost 21,000 people and viewed a staggering 822,000 times.
McGregor spent a significant amount of time on his back due to Mendez’s four takedowns but targeted his body with a variety of different kicks.
And it wasn’t long before those body shots began to take their toll as Mendez visibly started to slow down in the second round before eventually being stopped with
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