Did Conor Decline More Than Everyone Else Improved, or Vice Versa?

Conor declined, but it's because of the fame and fortune.

Think about it, he burned through the 45 division because he was the "Khabib"...cutting major weight to have the advantage.

Thereafter, he is 2-1 at WW against Diaz and Cerrone and he is 1-3 at LW against Alvarez and Poirier. The fame and fortune set in and he just doesn't seem to be as good as he showed when he was at 145.
 
The Fat Mexican said:
He lost his aura of invincibility after the Diaz fight when he got clowned and choked.

Other fighters are not scared of him anymore, they don't freeze in front of him.

Another major factor: he's fighting normal sized people now. He did well against manlets, but he's fighting bigger guys now that are more durable and can take a punch better
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That didn't really change his aura because fighters were still intimidated of him after that fight. Like the Alvarez fight. I think the Khabib fight is when he really lost his aura, because from the prefight, actual fight, and post fight he didn't have the same confidence in his aura that he's had in previous fights. It was very easy to read that he was intimidated of Khabib.

He also declined in skills while everyone else he fought improved. Conor used to have an advantage in the striking/movement but he doesn't have that advantage anymore. Everyone else caught up or surpassed him in skillset, now it's Conor trying to catch up currently. Conor turned into the type of fighter he used to diss, the slow stuck in the mud type of fighter. He got more focused on muscles and weight lifting instead of improving his striking/movement/footwork. Yes his grappling too, but the fighters he's being compared to improved their striking and they fought striking heavy fights vs Conor and not grappling heavy fights. Minus the 3rd round with Max and Conor was using a grappling heavy approach for that round due to his injury.
 
Garnet_StrongerThanYou said:
Most people would favor Holloway, Dustin, and Even Aldo over Conor nowadays.

They are out here winning relevant fights and fighting for Titles while Conor is almost done.

Did MMA evolve a lot in the 2-3 years he took off.

Or is he just a shadow of the man he used to be?

It's literally the same guys that he beat who are relevant in the title picture now.

Keep in mind Eddie Alvarez finished Gaethe after getting destroyed by Conor. So he wasn't done.

What happened?
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COnor stopped training MMA to go train Boxing.
then he became a rich men, with other endeavors that obviously took his time.
His life changed from a disciplined life to a rich life, with all the pleasures that comes with it.

I don't think he declined, as much as he didn't have the hunger that propelled him to the top.
He has the desire, the drive... but not the hunger. IMHO now it is more about pride, but without the purpose.
 
Not having a real coaching team around him also hurts. Is Ido Portal still his “movement coach?” In my opinion, if Ido isn’t helping Conor anymore, Conor should reach out. As an earlier poster stated, Conor completely abandoned his counter striking which was got him to the promise land. Not only his counter striking, but his movement in those fights were spectacular as well. Conor should ditch SBG and get a proper team and consider reconnecting with Ido. I know my opinion of him getting back together with Ido might not be the best. But when I think of Conor’s fighting style, first things that come to mind are counter striking and movement.
 
laleggenda27 said:
Like most things, there's more than one factor at play:
  1. Max and Dustin are significantly better now than they were when Conor beat them. Max was just 21 years old in that fight.
  2. Conor's power simply isn't the same at 155. He was an absolute massive FW who killed himself to make weight. By his own admission, he was larger than his FW opponents. At LW, he's fighting guys his own size, and the power hasn't translated. Aside from his beautiful destruction against Eddie, the top LWs have shown that they can take Conor's punch and keep coming. Hell, even Eddie got knocked down 4 or 5 times before finally being done.
  3. After the Mayweather paycheck, Conor became a full-time businessman and part-time fighter. The Mayweather fight was great for Conor's bank account but ruinous for his fighting career.
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Sums it up perfectly.

Conor had such a dangerous style in his prime, reminiscent of prime Anderson Silva in terms of his quickness and incredible accuracy.

With that said, I think prime Max beats prime Conor in a war, and at 155 Dustin has the chin and cardio to deal with prime Conor's power.

It's really a shame massive wealth changed Conor. He looked magnificent at 145 and in his utter domination of Eddie Alvarez. For all his brash talking and arrogance, Conor was an extraordinary striker.

He should have retired after the Khabib fight. The back-to-back losses to Dustin destroyed Conor's aura.
 
OldCasualBoxer said:
Khabib left the blueprint to beat Connor:
- Take him down as soon as possible, swap his energy,
- Avoid the left hand in the first 2 rounds,
- Finish him

Dustin executed this exact plan in the second fight.
He also realized he could take Connor shots, so in the third fight he just blast him.

Anyone with the skills to implement this plan would be heavily favored against "prime" Connor.
A 5.6" Mendes took prime Connor down almost at will, so its safe to assume most of the 155 "grapplers" would be able to do the same.

Without heavily improving his ground game and cardio, he would always be at "mercy" of a grappler that knows how implement his game.
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Its not that simple. Conor was training in Taekwondo before that movement idiot came to his team and started doing that weird touching bullshit in favor of his taekwondo which is very footwork heavy and dynamic which requires cardio. He discarded that for some woo woo pseudo tai chi nonsense. His footwork and movement suffered a great deal.

Another thing is that according his coach who mentioned to Rogan " We need to bring those nightmare camps back" means that Conor at one point was truly training extremely hard but got burnt out and was looking for gimmicky new age ways of training that promise easy result. Hence the touch butt guy and his fast program replacing legitimate training.

Lastly to Conors defense, while its true that Chad took the fight on short notice, Conor had some knee problems that did not let him defend the takedown properly. When he fought Khabib he did well with his takedown defense but at that point, he turned in to an alcoholic and already abandoned all the great habits that brought him to superstardom.




 
For the op question it has to do with both. He declined while his competition got better. I know some mma fighters and all of them say if you aren’t training a lot and taking fights on a normal basis you usually aren’t getting any better. That obviously happened with conor. I think he lost a lot of hunger too. But in addition to all that his competiton got better. Guys like Dustin and max got much better from when he fought them at 145. And the top light weights all got better and that division is historically the deepest and best. Right now you got figure Conor loses to all the top 5 guys. I mean he isn’t at this peak anymore so I guess it doesn’t matter. I’d like him to forget about the belt and have fun fights. Like everyone knows the diaz trilogy will happen at some point and it is a fun fight. I think him and jorge would be a lot of fun at WW and right now with how much conor weighs I think that is the right fight to make. He will struggle to get down to LW right now so have him fight Jorge. After that give for his last fight on his contract have him fight the trilogy with Diaz. After that he either fights celebrity boxing like a paul fight for the money or retires.
 
It isn't that black and white
Conor's hunger is gone. He isn't training like a guy on welfare trying to make his life better for him and his GF.
He's fighting a weight class up where he isn't enjoying the same advantages he previously had.
The mind games that worked on fighters previously are looking past that now.
 
Conor's decline happened as soon as people figured out his terrible heart and cardio if we're being honest.

That's why Nate exposed him at his absolute peak.
 
He declined, he’s faced TUFer competition, some dudes have emerged with real slickness to their boxing, and he’s simply a less effective fighter above 145 than he was at that weight.
 
He changed his style. Even Dustin admitted that.
 
Conor traded his prime for $$$. Can anyone blame him? I just wish he would stfu, and retire like he promised. Not because i like him ( i don't ) im just tired of his retarded fans.
 
Garnet_StrongerThanYou said:
Most people would favor Holloway, Dustin, and Even Aldo over Conor nowadays.

They are out here winning relevant fights and fighting for Titles while Conor is almost done.

Did MMA evolve a lot in the 2-3 years he took off.

Or is he just a shadow of the man he used to be?

It's literally the same guys that he beat who are relevant in the title picture now.

Keep in mind Eddie Alvarez finished Gaethe after getting destroyed by Conor. So he wasn't done.

What happened?
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Or is simply not in the right weight class anymore?
 
Him becoming more of a lead leg heavy boxer only can definitely be considered a decline. He's a lot easier to exploit now.
 
I think he doesn't have the power to put down many LW. He did decline, but he can still find the mark. It simply doesn't have the same impact on bigger fighter.
 
TheSwedishGOAT said:
Link?
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He said it in a roundabout way when he said Conor's still the hardest hitter he's fought and hurt him in their fights, including "flashing" him in the 2nd, but didn't follow up in these most recent ones. Dustin basically admitted he didn't improve or change anything to have survived, just that Conor himself gave him the chance to by not having anything further down the pipe behind it when he was hurt and vulnerable. Old Conor used to.

Which is what I've been saying is Conor's problem for years. He's too busy looking for a 1 shot KO that he throws these big shots that hurt sure, but he's never really been a 1 punch KO guy. Almost all of his KOs are TKOs where he's "flashing" guys like Dustin says, but then he's got another 3-4 punches right behind it that drop/finish them cause they get hit immediately and don't see it. He's not doing that anymore because he wants a 1 punch, so they survive exactly like Dustin said he did.

His style changed. He still could be finishing guys if he fought like he used to. I'd also argue that partially ties into his finishing instinct seems to have gone downhill somewhat too, but that's a lesser issue.
 
DestinedAussie said:
Or is simply not in the right weight class anymore?
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No his natural weight class is lw. He is where he should be. The problem for him is that division is a shark tank and the guys at that weight class at least in the the top 5 can all take multiple power shots while also being able to distribute them. And they have cardio that mac doesn’t.
 
I'm not convinced Conor has declined. Others (Poirier, Holloway) have improved and grown bigger. Khabib was always a level above.
 
Once he moved up, he didn't have knockout power in his hands anymore, and once he was fighting guys who could eat his left hand, then his cardio issues showed up.
Despite winning the belt, he's a losing fighter at LW, 1 - 3 and 3 - 4 overall above 145.
 
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