On March 5, 2016, the biggest fight in UFC history was supposed to go down. The lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos was supposed to square off against the featherweight champion Conor McGregor. If Conor had picked up the victory, he would have become the first UFC fighter to ever be the champion of two weight divisions at the same time. Unfortunately the fight was canceled two weeks before it was supposed to happen due to an injury Dos Anjos sustained while training and was never rescheduled. Today we will discuss while it is finally time for the two to step into the octagon together after all this time.

In RDA’s professional career, he holds a record of 30-13-0, is 2-2 in title fights, and has gone against some of the biggest names in the sport such as Khabib Nurmagomedov, Tony Ferguson, Nate Diaz, and Eddie Alvarez. Unfortunately, the last couple of years have not gone so well for the Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend. He is 2-4 since 2018, with all four losses coming by way of unanimous decision. The fight with McGregor is exactly what RDA needs to be relevant again.

Conor McGregor has reached levels of popularity never seen before in the sport of MMA. With a whopping 40 million followers on Instagram and being known for his legendary trash talk, the Irish superstar was the highest paid athlete in the world in 2020. It is worth noting that he only fought once in 2020, knocking out Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in 40 seconds during the main event of UFC 246. He is also the first UFC fighter ever to be the champion of two weight divisions at the same time. His recent struggles are not as bad as RDA’s, but the Notorious one has seen better days himself. With his devastating leg injury suffered at UFC 264 against Dustin Poirier being fresh on everyone’s mind, and being 1-3 since fighting Floyd Mayweather in September 2017, Conor also needs something to give him a boost. The fight against RDA would be the perfect thing.

The biggest obstacle with getting this fight booked is timing. We still do not know how long Conor is going to be out for, but we do know that he will have another contest with Poirier. That contest could potentially be for the lightweight championship, meaning a McGregor win would put a lot of lightweights between him and RDA. But if Conor were to lose that fight or if it did not happen for whatever reason, we could finally see these two go at it as soon as McGregor is healthy.