In January, Germany’s number-two ranked featherweight Dennis Siver fought the biggest fight of his life and lost to Conor McGregor at UFC Fight Night: McGregor vs. Siver in Boston. The fight was a decisive and one-sided affair, Siver got stopped on punches under two minutes into the second round. Aside from the two first minutes of the bout, it was all McGregor. However, Siver isn’t finished with McGregor just yet.
“It is particularly hard to forget him,” he told German outlet GNP1.de at a UFC media event in Berlin yesterday. “The fight is over and done for me, it’s been a few months since, I can live with it. But this guy is just everywhere, he can’t be overlooked. And I guess we will hear even more from him in the future.”
After a relatively good start for Siver, McGregor took over their fight quickly and dominated from the midway of the first round until the TKO finish in the second. But still, Siver would love to have a rematch with the brash Irishman, and he has an explanation why.
“I would definitely do a rematch, because the first fight didn’t go too well for me. I don’t want to make excuses, but during the first round he hit me under my left eye with one of his knuckles or something, and a little muscle kind of got stuck. The result was, I had double-vision, which means that I was basically dealing with two McGregors from that point on, what a horror,” Siver laughed.
Siver explains that his eye problems have been so severe, that he even thought about quitting during the first break, but that ultimately the cutman was able to flatten the swelling a bit with his iron, and he felt more or less good to go at the beginning of round two. But as soon as more McGregor’s punches started hitting the eye again, the swelling was back.
“I got hit above the same eye then, and the eye was starting to swell shut. So from fighting with double-vision I went to fighting with one eye,” says Siver. “It went all downhill from there. Fighting one-eyed against such a strong and quick opponent just doesn’t make any sense. I kind of gave up in that second round. Would it have been a three-round fight, I might have continued and taken a beating for the last round, too. But it was a five rounder, and I wanted to save my health for other fights in the future.”
And there are big future fights already scheduled for both rivals. Conor McGregor is preparing himself for the biggest fights in UFC history, a featherweight title clash against champion Jose Aldo at UFC 189, July 11. Siver will face Pride veteran Tatsuya Kawajiri June 20 at UFC Fight Night: Gustafsson vs. Teixeira in Berlin. Both fighters have big tasks in front of them, but Siver just can’t let go, can’t stop thinking about what could have been – and in his opinion still could be:
“If my eye hadn’t swollen shut, it could have been a completely different fight.”
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