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

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Garnet_StrongerThanYou

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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?
 
Conor's decline has been huge. I think mentally he is completely finished. His last 2 fights were just outright weird from him. 2nd Dustin fight, he came out with the stupidest game plan of all time, only boxing. Then the 3rd fight he came out blasting full-power kicks from an injured leg. He also would have gassed so hard and got finished if it didn't break, he threw about 3 spinning back kicks in the 1st 30 seconds. He completely abandoned his counter striking which got him to be a double champ.
 
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?
Click to expand...

Others improved yes.

Conor declined ten fold.

Prime Conor beats Dustin easy.

Before people feel the urge to quote me, I made this thread before, so it's not like I don't think Dustin is awesome.

https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/is-dustin-poirier-the-best-striker-in-the-lw-history.4190204/
 
Both as everyone above already said

While he was punching old men or trying to get boxing money fights everyone else was taking 3+ mma fights a year
 
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
 
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
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, the guys at LW & even WW are still manlets. Sherbro standard is anyone below 6 ft 4 & 240 lbs is a manlet
 
Conor declined. Go back and look at how fluid and dynamic he was in the first Dustin fight compared to now where he is just a plodding stuck in the mud fighter. Back then Dustin was just another decent fighter than got run over.
 
I think he declined more than anything. Can't deny that at his peak he was one of the best guys to ever do it. I think he was never the same after the mayweather fight. How could he be? Already had accomplished everything he wanted, made an insane amount of money. He lost that hunger I think. That being said, Khabib beats every version of Mcgregor and I legitimately think full camp Mendes would have kicked his ass.

Prime Mcgregor is a 50/50 against Chucky Olives, he beats Dustin, loses to Makhachev (probably), beats Gaethje, beats Chandler, and probably loses to Prime Tony (after absolutely lighting Tony's face up and then gassing).
 
He hasn't declined that much but he also has not improved. His cardio is still as shitty today as it was when he started fighting and he doesn't train anything but boxing since Mayweather clowned him. He was beating people with his boxing until they realized that he has no cardio and his ground game is garbage. It wasn't hard to figure out all you have to do it pressure him for a round with some wrestling and he's pretty much done. On top off that all those young guys trained MMA, not boxing, and got better.
 
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.
 
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?
Click to expand...

His fight IQ told him beef cake was the way to go.
 
Khabib, coke, and alcohol took his soul.
 
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.
 
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
Click to expand...
He still beat Alvarez after the Diaz fight.
 
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