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Official Conor McGregor thread (part 5) *Read Mod Note in Post 1*
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Visited a friend in hospital and he typed out this heap of an essay. Says he hasn't forgotten the empathy & kindness shown to him from his friends on here.
Conor put in an immense performance on many levels and I think with the benefit of time his performance will be upgraded. Right now the prevailing opinion is "Conor got mauled" and that perception (as usual) is fueled by Joe Rogan's commentary.
But that narrative doesn't hold up under a minimum amount of scrutiny. Yes it was a finish and a clean, deserved victory but it was far from a mauling and there's a lot that Conor did that points to him still retaining championship hopes for the future.
The overall strike stats can be misleading but they're at least consistently measured so there is some merit in taking a look.
Total strikes landed:
Khabib 154 Barboza 25 (15 mins)
Khabib 172 Iaquinta 43 (25 mins)
Khabib 104 McGregor 96 (18 mins)
I see 2 "maulings" above if we're viewing it in strike differential.
Josh Thomson on his podcast was absolutely raving about Conor's performance and this shocked me because he was disparaging and dismissive towards Conor before the fight.
His first words in the clip:
"I am more impressed with Conor as an athlete and as a fighter than ever before".
Thomson says he has sparred countless more rounds with Khabib than anyone in AKA over the years and some of the things Conor was able to do astonished him to the point he isn't confident the rematch goes the same way (he still thinks Khabib wins a rematch but isn't as confident of that).
He cited 3 specific things:
1. Conor's ability to free a leg.
He said Khabib has trapped the legs of Olympic wrestlers and BJJ black belts who couldn't get their legs free and he personally couldn't do it without an ordeal. For Conor to free his legs multiple times early on immediately impressed him.
2. His wrist control.
Khabib has been able to trap the far side wrist of Iaquinta, Barboza and Johnson. Conor's grip strength (according to Josh) must be incredible to do so well for so long and barely (if ever) giving up that position. Speculates Conor must have mallets for hands because his hand stretched around Khabib's wrist, whereas his own hand can't.
3. His ability to avoid shots on bottom.
Yes Khabib unloaded in round 2 but most of those strikes were landing on arms, shoulders and Khabib punched the mat a few times. Khabib usually slices through the guard, steps into side control, but Conor maintained guard effectively for long stretches. His face after the fight also bears no resemblance to how previous Khabib opponents looked. Iaquinta, Johnson and Barboza were black and blue whereas Conor had a tiny shiner.
Thomson was effusive in his praise for that ground defence. He added that Khabib's arms were gassed in round 3. His overall gas tank still there but his arms were heavy, not just from throwing so many ground n pound shots but from battling Conor's wrist control.
He ended the segment by saying he didn't previously understand why Poirier, Aldo and Alvarez didn't just grab Conor and throw him around. He now feels he understands why.
Conor "looking off"
A lot has been said about this. He did at least 4 things differently during fight week that he did not do in his last few victories. Why he did it and what impact this had I don't know.
The most important of those differences in my view was his:
1. Arrival time at the venue on fight night.
For UFC 202 and 205 we have footage from Owen Roddy of Big John McCarthy giving his rules breakdown to Conor in the locker room.
At UFC 202, Conor is already undressed and wearing his fight gear as John's giving those instructions and we can see Sabah Homasi vs Tim Means on the telly in the background grappling on the mat, before the round ends.
So that's the first round of the first Main Card fight and Conor's stripped and already warming up.
At UFC 205, we see Conor is in a shirt during the instructions, getting a massage from Sergey, and we can hear on the telly in the background Rogan and Goldie giving their intro package to the PPV.
So that's before the Main Card even starts.
After a bit of digging, his arrival times at the venue (Irish time):
UFC 202: 2:11am
UFC 205: 2:13am
UFC 229: 3:14am.
He was shown on the Big Screen arriving at the venue in between rounds 1 and 2 of Lewis-Volkov (3:39am) but he was pictured arriving at 3:14am.
This might be meaningless to some. But I'm sure the UFC and the Nevada State Athletic Commission were having absolute kittens that he wasn't at the venue a good three quarters of an hour before the Main Card started.
Herb Dean was the ref for Lewis-Volkov which was 2nd fight up on the Main Card. Logistically speaking I am not sure he was able to give Conor his rules instructions before that fight.
That hour difference in arrival time is obviously an hour less for Conor to work with for wrapping hands, for warming up, for flow sparring, etc but it's also an hour less for the ref and commission.
Bob Bennett of NSAC is always in the locker room during refs initial rule instructions for Main Event but he was pictured cageside for Lewis-Volkov. It would appear to me that both the ref and commission had to scramble and leg it backstage after that fight.
Whether this is part of the "chaos" Anik alluded to I don't know but I can see how it would be a fairly frantic or rushed atmosphere back there. I saw one report/rumour that Conor Jr. was in the locker room bawling before being taken elsewhere. Might be complete heresay but a crying baby would help create an impression of chaos also.
2. He has a baby now. Obvious difference but at this point we have to note he's 0-2 while having a child. Granted those losses were Floyd and Khabib so we can't draw much inference but we can recall his UFC 194 interview with Ariel where he said having children is a negative for fighters.
Plenty of champions have children - Jon Jones, Khabib, Woodley, DC - but none of them ever publicly stated views like Conor did.
3. He has only twice smiled *immediately when stepping on the scale* during Official Weigh Ins. The first time was UFC 196 and the second time was UFC 229. He lost both fights obviously and armchair psychology can get ridiculous but still he's 0-2 when smiling on the scale.
I'm not sure if the smile is overconfidence or insecurity but I'm leaning towards insecurity.
4. Having looked through every single one of Conor's staredowns (as PPV headliner) as the fight begins, he has never broken eye contact with his opponent until Khabib. He broke eye contact and stared at the big screen instead.
All of the above can be chalked up as coincidences or just irrelevant nonsense but those are my observations.
Khabib:
The narrative that Khabib is some principled, respectful, professional man of honour is laughable.
Kadyrov believes in extrajudicial murders of gay people. Shortly after an estimated 56 people were murdered in a single night by Kadyrov's goons, Khabib showed up with Kadyrov to that kids MMA fight where 8 year old kids battered each other.
That's not any type of "principles" I can relate to.
Conor gets a ton of abuse for a lot he does (much of it justified) including his perceived casual racism towards Nate and Floyd.
Khabib isn't above casual racism either. On the conference call for Khabib-Ferguson, lets not forget Khabib said this:
"I think you're a cleaner. You make no money fighting so I think you clean houses"
You can't get more casually racist that calling a Mexican a cleaner and FYI Ferguson took it as racist in his reply to him: "yeah I'm a Mexican beaner I don't give a f*** what you say".
In terms of trash talk, the short term memories of people are astounding.
Khabib "I don't like trash talk" Nurmagomedov. The same Khabib that laid into Donald Cerrone and Anthony Pettis endlessly when he was injured in 2014 and early 2015. Calling Pettis a "paper champion playboy", Cerrone an "alcoholic fake Cowboy". When Pettis lost his belt, Khabib taunted him on The MMA Hour saying "Pettis is a prelim fighter, enjoy the prelims."
Why trash talk a man while he's down? Why revel in someone else's defeat?
He's not above weigh in antics either. He pushed Abel Trujillo at the weigh ins despite coming in overweight at 158.5 lbs himself.
He has a history of looking for trouble and starting/finding brawls.
He gave an interview a day before the WSOF event saying if Nate and Nick showed up to support Jake Shields that it would kick off. He ironically called the Diaz brothers "thugs" and made a disparaging comment about their parents
That's without getting into all the stuff he said about our country.
Conor was right about him.
Anyone who thinks it's ok to murder gay people or provide political cover for dictators who do it, IS backwards - regardless of religion.
He supports leaders who would gladly wipe western culture off the map and is 100% misogynistic to boot - he gave an interview saying girls make fighters weak.
Girls can be fighters too last time I checked.
I hope nobody is buying into this "humble" routine he has going on. His shilling for Kadyrov alone tells me all I need to know of his character. If Conor takes money from Putin and shills for him too, then I'll say the same of Conor too.
As for Zubaira Tukghov - the guy is just back from a 2 year USADA ban, popped for Ostarine, publicly says he's gonna jump Conor, then tries to jump him. Delighted Conor cracked him with a counter left.
The UFC is the least of Zubaira's worries. The NSAC are going to hammer everyone not named Conor or Khabib because that's the only way they can show strength. They dished out 5 years to Nick Diaz for weed, so I'm confident they'll hand out some crazy bans for undercard fighters like Zubaira for jumping the megastar who brings fortunes to the state of Nevada.
Conor:
One thing I keep coming back to with Conor is he has the heart of a lion until chokes are around his neck.
Anyone who withstands that 9th round against Floyd and doesn't quit, who withstands the 3rd round against Nate, anyone who fights for a world title on a dodgy knee, anyone who even accepts Khabib on the back of a 2 year layoff...
You can't question his heart.
What we can question is why he seems to give up to chokes without hand fighting. Him tapping isn't a big concern, it's that he seems to panic when an arm is around his neck.
I am not suggesting he could have escaped the neck crank or the rear naked choke from Nate. I'm saying his instinct was to tap rather than hand fight. And exhaustion plays a big role in both instances.
Still, you'd have to wonder if he has built up the muscle memory in training of those uncomfortable positions.
On his rise to glory the gym was full of strong minded individuals who didn't try copy Conor. The likes of Chris Fields, Tom Egan, Cathal Pendred.
Nowadays there is almost God-like worship and imitation of Conor.
He rolls with Dillon a lot but let's be real here - Conor is Dillon's hero. The last thing he wants to do is tap him out a dozen times a day and demoralise him (which he could easily do).
And yet when a fight comes and a choke is across the neck or under the chin, he almost instantly taps.
I question on a fundamental level if anyone is left in that gym willing to consistently challenge him in ways he needs to be challenged, whereas I have no doubt Pendred etc wouldn't give a bollox back in the day and would just go full pelt.
I'm also confused as to why Gunni Nelson played no role in this camp. He's fit as a fiddle and in the gym daily. Yes, Conor had Dillon and Dillon is an excellent wrestler as well as grappler. And yes Conor had the 2 young Moldovan's Kosti Gnusariov and Nikolay Grosdev.
I've no doubt those boys are good wrestlers. But the fact remains his key training partners for this fight ended up being Queally, Danis, Pascu, and 2 Moldovan's.
Queally and Danis are 1-0 combined at the top level of the fight game. That might be a harsh way of putting it but Queally has built his 11-4 at regional levels.
Surely what Conor needed in sparring for this was the best fighter SBG could get hold of, who is excellent on the ground... so the fact Gunni was not involved leads me to suspect he can't stomach the sycophant environment of a Conor camp.
Pure speculation there but I will say UFC 229 was the first fight ever that Gunni did not wish Conor good luck publicly on his instagram. Whatever that means.
Conor's grappling is excellent. His defensive jujitsu is very good. The way he kept guard for so long against Khabib was honestly extremely impressive given how easily Khabib has passed everyone else.
I am nitpicking here to a large degree but the insta-taps look like panic taps. With a bit more composure he would at least give it a few seconds of hand fighting.
Career wise the best move now is to allow Ferguson and Khabib to fight. If Khabib wins, the rematch is there whenever he wants it. If Ferguson wins he has a favorable stylistic match up.
I believe Conor can beat both of them.
I also believe he's a justifiable underdog against both and they can easily beat Conor too if he's not completely on it - actually even at his best. They're supremely gifted fighters all 3 of them.
I think Kevin Lee in time will smash all of them.
But Khabib could well be Conor's stylistic bogey man like Jones is for DC.
It's also possible the hunger just isn't there anymore. I got the vibe as soon as the fight started his instincts kicked in but right up until that he looked like a man who knew he was going home on a private plane with his child and pregnant partner, with all the riches he could ever need. He was more worried about how he looked on the Big Screen than how his opponent looked in front of him.
If he fights Khabib again, I would love to see him go nuts. Nuts as in implement some offensive wrestling. The power double he hit on Buchinger is in his locker and Khabib drags his back leg forward when winging haymakers, leaving him completely off balance. That takedown is there for Conor if he can get the timing down and his top pressure is excellent. Risky stuff I know but if he makes a mess of it he has shown he can survive for long periods under Khabib.
Part of me hopes he gets home, smells the fresh Kildare air and retires on the spot. Love him or hate him he has left an indelible mark on the sport and most of it positive.
The other part of me hopes he fights again but instead of the angry personal, political stuff we get a vintage build up like the build up to Mendes.
Laidback witty Conor > angry geopolitical Conor.
Reflecting on everything I believe the defeat will sting Conor badly because 2 of the 3 take downs Khabib landed came from unforced errors.
I believe the judges in Nevada going in had one scoring criteria for this fight and it was biased in Conor's favour.
Standing = Conor 10-9 or better.
Mat = Khabib 10-9 or better.
I honestly believe Khabib would not have been given a single round standing - even if he shaded it - because the perception was so entrenched that Conor is far better on the feet (which he is).
It probably stings even more because his ground defence was so good, and takedown defence on point, that all he had to do was stay on his feet 3 rounds; and I believe he had the skills to do it - if only he executed better early on.
I don't get the chance to get a computer much and I'm not too well right now, so you can take this as 6 months worth of essays. I will catch up on replies in 2019 please God.
If anyone wants to watch the Khabib-Tibau fight back there's a funny little sequence. Khabib level changed into a winging overhand right. I think at the end of round 2. The same setup he caught Conor with.
Tibau slipped it effortlessly. I don't know why but the sight of a Hulk Tibau easily slipping it compared to Conor getting plastered just made me laugh, as you'd think it'd be the other way around.
Just shows how much easier it is when not worrying about the takedown.
Before I wrap this thesis up, there is 0% chance Conor said "it's only business" or "only business". The first word was longer than the second and besides that, Conor always says the word "business" with emphasis on the "Z" sound in business.
That's my Zapruder analysis.
Hope everyone has a great Xmas and New Years.0 -
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN38ECWjJ6g
This discussion has been closed.
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