there are always two sides to this though.
To give you an example. When I used to help fighters train, they would spar with us, but they could not attack, only defend.
That would mean that it would be easy for me to just dish out some punishment, right?
Quite the opposite. If your opponent only defends, he is much harder to hit, since he won't open up.
Now, some people are noting the illegal things Conor did, but I think it goes far beyond that.
A wrestler many times would welcome a takedown attempt thinking he would be able to stop, reverse it or even scramble and take a good position.
In this sense, it is easier for Khabib to take down that person rather than take down someone who's sole intent is to not get taken down at any cost. And it will take a lot more energy as well, since the well versed wrestlers/ground fighters would not panic and would try to find an opening to, again, reverse it or even find a choke from the bottom.
A guy like Conor would use all his energy attempting to get out.
So when you add the illegal things Conor did, it is no wonder that Khabib had to take a break from it for a bit.
Besides, I don't know how much was the old taunting/macho thing where he wanted to show Conor he could stay standing against him and survive (while COnor couldn't stay in the ground as we saw)...
the world is more complex than the simplistic "he won a round against Khabib, he must be better than everyone Khabib faced"...
...then again, these same people were claiming that Conor did better against Floyd than Manny Pacquiao did.... so Conor must be much better than Manny @ boxing, right???
