The good news is that we will without question find out how good Conor really is in a few weeks.
Mendes gassed from only training a few days on short notice.
He caught lighting in a bottle with Aldo
He beat the ever loving fuck out of Alvarez.
Credit all around no matter the details. Big names. Big highlights.
Just surviving 5 rounds with Khabib earns a shit ton of respect with me. If this dude, finds a way to win, or even make the fight fairly close? He is a once in a generation fighter.
Being more than a regular joe doesn't qualify as elite.Of course he’s elite, no one gets to where he got by being a regular joe...
I’ve been posting on the grappling forum from 2009, guys at f12 actually post out pictures and most of us post our promotions, mine is there...
He's a legitimate brown belt in BJJ. In my book that puts him at average in the UFC for BJJ. In the UFC, you have black belts but there are levels to the black belts.
- I got my black belt in 3 years mcdojo black belts. The black belts that used their athletic ability and not BJJ to get by
- legitimate black belts. Guys who have over 10 years of pure BJJ experience.
- high level BJJ guys. The guys that make other black belts look normal.
- world champ black belts. The guys that make other good BJJ guys look helpless.
Now a legitimate brown belt might actually be black belt level but for one of many reasons just hasn't been awarded his black belt yet.
The one thing I took away from the Khabib fight is Conor isn't a slouch off his back and made Khabib (who is at world class level) work to either keep position or reachieve an already gained but lost dominant position. I also really liked his rubber guard. He made Khabib work and that's impressive.
Now BJJ and subs isn't all there is to a person's ground game. TD and TDD are other important aspects.
Considering that Conor has only been taken down by Chad and Khabib (he gets a pass on Nate because Nate took him down in the second fight when Conor was running on fumes at the end of the 5th round and in the first fight Conor initiated the TD and got swept to his back) that seems to be good evidence of solid TDD. The issue here is besides Khabib and Chad he's been matched up with mainly strikers who aren't going to attempt to take a person does unless something goes wrong with their game plans.
Besides a green Holloway I can't remember anyone else getting TD by Conor. But that's not his game plan.
Anyway
BJJ - B-
Wrestling - C-
Overall - C
Which is passing and average. Remember this is the UFC or the pinnacle of MMA.
Now considering his striking (MMA) is an A and Conor's overall skillset now jumps to B. But that's another conversation.
That's not heart that's cardio and that's another conversation. This is about the ground game.How do you explain not even touching Nate's or khabibs arms when they were choking him?
A heart issues not skill issues??
That's not heart that's cardio and that's another conversation. This is about the ground game.
Khabib didn't do anything with his grappling!!!!! That's my point.
If you think laying in guard is a great measure of scoring, that's on you. Most intelligent people don't.
Most intelligent people realize the rules are heavily skewed to wrestling, unfairly so. You can be getting beat soundly, and then get a takedown and lay in guard for a minute and somehow still win a round. Hell, you don't even have to have a good shot, you can just drive to the cage and work.
It's pitiful, and everyone outside of those types of guys knows it.
Kinda hard to do anything when you can't breathe. Conor's fighting style uses a bunch of energy. Empty gas tank makes cowards of us all.The fact that he didn't even attempt to fight it is clearly because he'd quit, rather than a cardio issue. The mental gymnastics you have to do to explain it away as a cardio issue is nothing short than his arms literally being paralyzed.
Being more than a regular joe doesn't qualify as elite.
I apologize then. But you should know better than to say McGregor is good on the ground
If Khabib didn't do anything on the ground, Conor didn't do anything at all. One of them dictated how/where the game was played and the other failed to establish that context. The round was not close. The only close round was the round Conor arguably took.
Khabib took him down, kept him down, and steadily advanced position. Four of five minutes were spent were Khabib wanted to be. McGregor defended well, but you don't take rounds for running away.
He doesn't have a ground game. Its TDD and survival. And that is why he will never be remembered as an ATG fighter, hes too one dimensional.
People giving him credit against Khabib also need to factor in how much fence grabbing and other illegal things he was doing, and being allowed to get away with by Herb
He doesn't deserve any credit for his ground game against Khabib, he got owned. Just like he doesn't deserve any credit for the fight with Floyd because Floyd did not respect his power (lol at people who honestly believed he hit harder than elite level boxers). He wouldn't have taken the same risks against any of his boxing peers he fought at the elite level