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

[Local Plata]

He started fighting actual contenders rather than hand picked people that only box. Conor is better now than he has ever been, this fangirl myth that he got worse is hilarious and just an excuse.

 

[campbecc]

His only real goal in fighting was to make money. Once he had money he stopped caring enough to put in the work. He never would have beaten Khabib (baring an early knockout which is almost always low probability) but if he had kept training he might have beaten Poirier again. I'm not saying he necessarily would have been better because fighters peak at different ages, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to think he could have been if he put in the effort.

 

[Furious77]

I'm sure it's been said already im not gonna go through the entire thread, but Conor never wouldve sniffed a title had he come up through the lw ranks. I'm not gonna take anything away from his fw run though.

 

[The Fat Mexican]

No. You are just being passive aggressive with your blanket statement. Conor has had four opponents at lightweight and welterweight since his Diaz fight. He won against Alvarez and Cerrone. He lost to Khabib who is arguably the most dominant fighter in lightweight history and Poirier who he already beat once before. He's not fighting guys bigger now. Poirier actually improved and had a great gameplan in his two rematches.

Whatever floats your boat

 

[Ogata]

I agree with almost everything but Conor can't beat Khabib in 100 fights. He just different beast. Anyway conor never was that good. That version of Poirier would have beaten every Conor.

I felt he did well but I also now realize he cheated and still lost so I can see that for sure. I train in Korean Karate ( Taekwondo/Tang Soo Do) and Sambo. In taekwondo you get in to freaky good cardio shape but with sambo/wrestling, you also tend to have your cardio stolen if not enough stand up grappling is learned and I have been doing sambo for longer but it takes so goddamn long to get good at while Korean Karate is more difficult, you also make gains very fast and develop incredible dynamic movements while grappling/sambo is pure concentrated dose of pacing and endurance.

So if I have to compare my experience in the same style of Khabib and Conor, I would say due to Conors personality, he would not win. Of course he could have won IF he had that dedication to learn proper grappling but then that would mean Conor has to be a completely different human being because we are talking about character trait.

I agree with almost everything, and obviously its not as simple

But the myth that prime Connor was invincible, was obviously, just a myth.
He had submission losses to Sitenkov and Duffy, so his lack of ground game was known, and the Diaz fight also expose his lack of cardio (or incapacity for pacing) and low fight IQ (or incapacity for a plan B when the left isn't ko'ing your opponent).

This is MMA, so unless he was able to be extremely serious in his ground game training, he would always be vulnerable to the better fighters at 155.
At 145, his left hand was able to cover for those gaps in his skillset, as he could shut down everyone, but at 155, he would always need to become a full MMA fighter to have any chance to beat the top 5 guys.
His takedown defense was improved against Khabib, but the amount of fools he committed definitively helped

In a nutshell, he was immensely talented, but he would need to be very serious about his training and correct his skill gaps to be able to have a change with the top guys at 155.

You can't be a top fighter in a deep division as 155, when you are constantly parting, drinking, drugs, etc ...

Fair assessment and to add to my above post, he COULD have won IF he was a different human being but as you mentioned he committed many fouls that were blatant and still lost badly and was unable to do any damage to Khabib.

Regarding being invincible, he made the best decision of his life training Taekwondo because his footwork was incredible and he followed it up with the WORSE decision of his life training with a movement guy who did not understand the subtly of attaining technique because he said that if you have variation of movements, you can do any martial arts technique on the fly. Conor bought in to this bullshit and thought he would be like some anime super fighter who would pull an Indonesian Silat takedown followed up with a Cambodian kickboxing head kick out of nowhere.


In reality, your body goes through subtly and pacing of the moves, its tempo and speed and that takes years. You cant just learn any moves which addresses your point of pacing yourself. Boxers, Karatekas and grapplers and even yogis know when and how to go deep, hard, fast or slow in their moves. You cant just do bunch of random movement and expect to become a super athlete. Conor bought this bullshit as oppose to learning to deepen his understanding of his then current arts.

So I agree with your post but I would challenge what your saying with the fact that Conor was on his way of extreme improvement and IF he continued with his progress and added wrestling then he may have had a chance to be invincible but then again that is a what if alternate universe argument. Agree with everything on drugs and partying. Shits on recovery hard!

Love the almost agree with you from the both of you.

 

[Fedor5723]

People fail to remember he moved up in Weight Class something Khabib never did!