Chad Mendes was never able to touch UFC gold during his storied career, and he has no regrets about the time he arguably came closest.
Saturday will mark the 11-year anniversary of UFC 189, where Mendes (18-5 MMA, 9-5 UFC) suffered a second-round TKO loss to Conor McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC) in an interim featherweight title bout where he replaced Jose Aldo, who withdrew due to a rib injury.
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With just 10 days to prepare and a significant amount of weight to cut, Mendes gave it his all against “The Notorious,” who returns to the cage form a five-year layoff when he rematches Max Holloway (27-9 MMA, 23-9 UFC) in the UFC 329 headliner at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (Paramount+).
Mendes hasn’t competed in MMA since December 2018, and said the more time that separates him from that fateful night in “Sin City” against the brash Irishman, the more perspective he gains on it as a life-changing experience.
Longtime featherweight contender Mendes strolled down memory lane with MMA Junkie to relive the rollercoaster that led him to UFC 189 and the experiences he encountered as tried, but ultimately failed, to produce a career-defining moment.
The short-notice call for UFC 189
“He was supposed to fight Aldo and Aldo ended up hurting his rib. I got the call and was out finishing in my boat. My manager was like, ‘Are you ready, can you make weight?’ I was like, ‘Sh*t, I don’t know.’ We traded in the boat and got right to it. It was obviously a very unexpected and exciting time in my life going to Vegas. Ireland was there. You walk down the street and Irish guys and girls singing and chanting and drunk all over the place. That was a crazy experience going through that media the week of. Everything was so last minute, but this was one of the things in my mind where anything could happen and I could go out there and catch Conor with a right hand and put him to sleep and now I’m the UFC champion. Obviously it was something I wasn’t super prepared for, but you’ve just got to live on the edge sometimes.”
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A cherry-picked opponent?
“I know it a toss-up between me and Frankie (Edgar) to get the fight, and Frankie was still training and pretty much ready to go and Conor didn’t choose Frankie, or the UFC didn’t choose Frankie. They chose me. That was probably a little bit by design, but it is what it is. Everything happens for a reason. Whether we can see it right in that moment or now. But looking back on it now, who knows what things would’ve looked like in my life. I ain’t mad at it.”
The training disaster
“We had to try to game plan something. I started sparring a bunch with Mike Malott. We had the southpaw and kind of tall and length style, but I remember the first sparring session I had with Mike, I threw and inside low kick and caught his knee and just destroyed the top of my foot. For about four or five days after that, in the Embedded videos I was only doing swimming workouts in those videos. I couldn’t even work out or stand on it. I was just trying to do anything to burn calories and build cardio and do anything possible, but it was all swimming stuff. There was a lot of challenges that were thrown my way, but it’s not always going to be perfect.
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“You have a sporting event, you have a test in school – there’s always going to be some type of challenge that gets thrown at you. It’s how you deal with it to decide if you’re going to be a champion or not. You’re either going to tuck your tail and run away and be scared or you’e going to face those fears and say, ‘Screw it, what if? Maybe I’m going to be out there and be the champ.’ If anything as a parent that’s one of the things I can talk to my kid about now. I didn’t win, but I wasn’t scared. I got in there and it did it when it wasn’t ideal. Sometimes you’ve just got to take that risk. I didn’t win in the cage, but I think it was a win overall for everything else that has happened in my life since then.”
The positive takeaways from defeat
“I took the chance and it didn’t end up panning out in my favor. But I think the more disconnected I get from the sport and the older I get, the more I can look back on that and understand how truly blessed both me and Conor were in that fight. I was the No. 1 contender. That was a huge fight for Conor to get in there and win. If I would’ve won that fight who knows what both of our paths would’ve looked like at this point. But I truly believe everything happens for a reason.
“That was Conor’s breakout moment and made him the superstar that he is today. That in turn helped everyone in the UFC with pay going up, people staring to understand that you can become a household name in this sport. This is a sport that’s going tremendously, it’s huge. Conor was one of the guys that spread headed that and took the lead. Obviously it sucks I didn’t win, but it did a lot to help build my business outside of the fight game and build a brand, which I’ve used to now put on my family’s table over the years and keep it going and keep growing it. Sucks I didn’t win, but looking back on it I’m blessed I got that opportunity and I think it helped both of us.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: 11 years after Conor McGregor loss, Chad Mendes sees UFC 189 as ‘a win overall’
