Media McGregor Has 'Bad Grappling: Myth?

[Thickfreakness]

Cardio is his weakness, always has been

Agreed.

 

[Streeter]

2 fighters have taken him down ........ 2 of the best td in the game in Mendes n Beeb

 

[MayhemMonkey]

his grappling is solid, he has just run into a couple of specialists in the UFC that are more skilled at grappling.



is normal

 

[BRASIL WAND]

FACT: 4 out of 4 losses in his career have come via SUBMISSION.

FACT: His Grappling offense consist of a few flashy takedowns and guard passes with low percentage completion rates taught to him by Bum BJJ coach Kavanaugh and Marcelo Garcia’s waterboy Dillon Danis.

FACT: His Defensive ground game consists of an Archaic closed guard hoping for a ref stand up.



I love how people watch these random know nothing YouTube videos that all of a sudden think they’ve reinvented the wheel.

 

[CrimsonFan]

His grappling is average for 155

It's good enough and he uses it for defense. Hes not about to go takedown and submit cerrone though.. plus every loss he has is submission

 

[xP]

His grappling is decent. He has a pretty solid top game, decent sweeps from his back, generally decent defensive control from his back. Doesn't scramble well, isn't going to be sweeping someone who's established control on him.

His wrestling isn't great but how bad it is is very overplayed. The only fighter to take him down at will was Chad Mendes who is one of the most decorated collegiate wrestlers in mma history. Khabib definitely wrestle fucked him but McGregor gave him a tougher time than most in his TDD.

People associate his grappling with being poor because when he gets tired it goes to shit and he tends to give up position to go for desperation escapes, which has ended in him getting tapped a couple times.

 

[SteveColdStone]

I don’t think it’s terrible but I don’t think it’s good either. He is extremely defensive and he usually does a decent job while fresh. He is decent on top and when he hurts his opponent he has some nice passes and control while unloading ground and pound. His wrestling is a bit better than his grappling imo. Pretty good in the clinch too.

All in all I’d say he is below average for a top 15 fighter. Let’s compare him to the LW top 15:
IMO
Clearly better than him — Khabib, Ferg, Cerrone, Lee, Oliveira, Islam, Oliveira, Gillespie, Pettis.

Better than him — Hooker, Poirier, Felder, Hernandez (haven’t seem much of him but he has a wrestling background and did a good job vs OAM on the ground) Gaethje (haven’t seen much of his BJJ because he scrambles so well) Barboza.

Same level - Iaquinta.

You can argue Conor is as good as most guys I put in the better than him category, but Hooker, Poirier, and Felder all have finishes on the ground in the UFC, and Felder and Poirier have shown good grappling more consistently. Hernandez and Gaethje come from grappling backgrounds so I would have to assume they are better, and Hernandez did a really good job against OAM who is a good grappler. Barboza got beat up on the ground by Lee and Khabib but didn’t have to cheat.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

Good thing I didn't say "very highly" then.


But anyway. There was a whole story about him showing up to his gym to use the heavy bag quietly in the corner and then got invited to roll.

I know the story. Eddie says nothing about Conor's BJJ in that story. He says he respects Conor's work ethic. The story gets misquoted on here all the time.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

Why would you use a gif of Conor cheating to get out of a submission as evidence of good grappling?

 

[CPH]

Nate made him his bitch in about 10 seconds on the ground. The other two times they hit the floor, Nate had less time before the bell rang. For comparison, look at how Masvidal (who according to many here will ‘get wrestlefucked by any solid wrestler’) manhandled Nate on the ground.

A fresh Conor being able to stall out Khabib for one round isn’t some amazing feat. If anything, people are giving McGregor too much credit based on what? Gym stories and how good he looked against a 21 year old Holloway?

 

[Colageneration]

I know the story. Eddie says nothing about Conor's BJJ in that story. He says he respects Conor's work ethic. The story gets misquoted on here all the time.

You literally misquoted me while my words were right on the screen Infront of you.

It was clear to see from that podcast that Eddie thinks highly of Conor's grappling. But sure, if you reply want to you can argue the point that he only used the word "good" twice to directly refer to his BJJ skills instead of other positive words like "fantastic" or "amazing."

I can only guess as to why one would bother doing that though.

 

[Willie]

All of his losses are subs and all the subs were exactly the same. 6 years apart and he still gives his back and taps to RNC's

 

[djacobox372]

He's similar to Anderson-minus the subs. Defends well on the ground, but not extremely hard to take down.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

You literally misquoted me while my words were right on the screen Infront of you.

It was clear to see from that podcast that Eddie thinks highly of Conor's grappling. But sure, if you reply want to you can argue the point that he only used the word "good" twice to directly refer to his BJJ skills instead of other positive words like "fantastic" or "amazing."

I can only guess as to why one would bother doing that though.

Once again, I doubt you actually listen to the podcast. Eddie speaks very highly about Conor's willingness to challenge himself. The story has nothing to do with Conor's BJJ skills. Just that he is willing to test himself.

Before the story is told Eddie very briefly talks about his skills to deny the claim that he is bad. Eddie thinks highly of Conor as a fighter. Not his grappling. Not sure why you're so uppity about that.

 

[MMAWizz]

Look at it this way.

Offensively: He was able to take Holloway down and beat him to a decision with this. This is not an easy feat, because Holloway is almost impossible to take down; however, this occurred a long time ago, and Holloway may have improved significantly (albeit truth be told, fighters don't really improve all that much, and can in fact deteriorate because of the damage that they take in fights; MMA is kinda like bodybuilding in the sense that you improve tremendously over the first couple of years, and then progression slows down quite a lot to the point of improvements being negligible - training is still important, however, to maintain a certain level of skill even if not to improve).
Defensively: Alvarez tried to take him down multiple times, and he couldn't. If you watch that fight, McGregor displayed elite TDD.

 

[blaseblah]

Nate made him his bitch in about 10 seconds on the ground. The other two times they hit the floor, Nate had less time before the bell rang. For comparison, look at how Masvidal (who according to many here will ‘get wrestlefucked by any solid wrestler’) manhandled Nate on the ground.

If you conveniently ignore that Conor was rocked on the feet, sure. And no, Nate had more than 10 seconds in the rematch. He actually got swept.

 

[AdamantiumPimmel]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I had a discussion on a show I run about Conor McGregor's grappling. In particular, the common assertion that it's bad. I find that most analysts (and fans) go back to this talking-point when assessing his skills. And I think that it's unfounded based on the evidence that we have.

Here's the short clip.



In my view, his grappling overall is quite good. The word itself, 'grappling', is used in a very broad sense, because there's a lot to it. And he's better at certain things than others. But I don't see it as being a major hole in his game. And he's proven that over the years.

He was submitted by Diaz, but, let's be real, he lost that fight on the feet. He resigned himself to his fate because he was about to get smashed by strikes. And even if you disagree with that, I'd argue that getting subbed by Diaz isn't a suitable measuring stick. And the same applies to Khabib. He did OK in some exchanges against him (minus the blatant fouls). But, either way, context is key, and the context is he was fighting Khabib.

I think he has many problems, perhaps his cardio above all else, but I don't think his grappling is his primary concern.

What do you think?

 

[JustBleed69]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I had a discussion on a show I run about Conor McGregor's grappling. In particular, the common assertion that it's bad. I find that most analysts (and fans) go back to this talking-point when assessing his skills. And I think that it's unfounded based on the evidence that we have.

Here's the short clip.



In my view, his grappling overall is quite good. The word itself, 'grappling', is used in a very broad sense, because there's a lot to it. And he's better at certain things than others. But I don't see it as being a major hole in his game. And he's proven that over the years.

He was submitted by Diaz, but, let's be real, he lost that fight on the feet. He resigned himself to his fate because he was about to get smashed by strikes. And even if you disagree with that, I'd argue that getting subbed by Diaz isn't a suitable measuring stick. And the same applies to Khabib. He did OK in some exchanges against him (minus the blatant fouls). But, either way, context is key, and the context is he was fighting Khabib.

I think he has many problems, perhaps his cardio above all else, but I don't think his grappling is his primary concern.

What do you think?

His grappling is a 7/10 and his TDD is an 8/10

 

[Hassan Mouzine]

I thought he did really well in round 1 of the khabib fight.

he did well in the sense that he didnt get raped full on in the first round. he couldt stop the takedown, wich was key to the rest of the fight. but he didnt get mauled on the ground in that first round, he defended properly.

but then again....he couldnt mount any offense and he spent the most time on his back carrying khabibs weight. so he showed decent grappling but it did nothing for him. it was only a matter of time before he gassed out and did get a beating. without the blatant fouls he would have looked weaker as well on the ground and might have been finished quicker

no other fighter gets away with that many fouls without at least a warning. most fighters would have gotten a point taken. so imo his grappling is not bad but he did cheat to survive and make it seam less bad as well

 

[MescalineDreams]

Once again, I doubt you actually listen to the podcast. Eddie speaks very highly about Conor's willingness to challenge himself. The story has nothing to do with Conor's BJJ skills. Just that he is willing to test himself.

Before the story is told Eddie very briefly talks about his skills to deny the claim that he is bad. Eddie thinks highly of Conor as a fighter. Not his grappling. Not sure why you're so uppity about that.

Actually no

He did openly say Conor was really good


Basically praised his ability and tried to silence the talk about his grappling being poor. Along with the other stuff

Having some dejavu here lol