Right after the fight, I had a long chat with a friend about it and what adjustments Conor could make. My friend suggested that Conor's best bet is to actually get in Khabib's face and tee off. He's eventually going to get taken down, so instead of fearing it, the best thing to do is push forward, get Khabib out of his comfort zone, pressure, and trade shots. I agreed with his analysis. If Conor can do this, Khabib will eventually get caught.
What's interesting is that a few days later Kavanaugh appeared on Rogan's podcast and basically (paraphrased) said "I feel I drilled defense too much with Conor. We were too concerned with not losing and should have been more offensive." So I think Kavanaugh came to the same conclusion my friend came to. We saw a bit of this when Conor came at Khabib right out the gate. You could see a clear "wtf" demeanor on Khabib. He was bewildered and out of his element. As the fight progressed, Conor became more and more fearful of the takedown, backing up, ceding space, and getting pushed to the cage. That is when Khabib is in his element. So it's a matter of not allowing that to happen again. Sure, drill TDD, drill BJJ to recover on the bottom -- BUT that should be the plan B. Plan A should be "put the pressure on Khabib and force him to trade". I think Plan A in the first fight was "Play safe, throw when there are openings, but do not get taken down." The focus was on NOT getting taken down as opposed to pressuring Khabib and making Khabib think about how to react about fire coming his way. I think if there is a rematch, the emphasis will be on the latter.
Put in terms of war, Khabib had to charge over open ground. Conor was sniping and retreating to get space and keep sniping. In a rematch, Conor's best bet would be to unload suppressive fire (machine guns and artillery) to make every step Khabib takes forward dangerous, to make him worry about many angles and options at all times.
