1. Khabib knew that Conor wanted a reaction. He was ice cold (no anger, no counter-clowning even) because he wanted Conor to know that nothing he had done up to this point had worked, that he was going to be fighting in his world.
2. Another key thing that this ‘analyst’ doesn’t understand, is that humans can behave is very different ways, depending on context. Conor might have been confident during the faceoff, because he thrives in that kind of environment. But in the cage, it’s a whole different ballgame.
Finally, if you’re going to play psychologist, something to consider is the fact that the boundless confidence Conor had at 145 evaporated after he ran into Diaz. From that point on, he knew that 8 minutes into a fight, he can gas, lose his ability to hurt his opponent, and get finished. He still hasn’t finished an opponent past the 2nd round, and has now been finished 3 times in the past 5 outings. I mean fuck faceoff dynamics - that’s some infinitely more important data right there.