As for McGregor, he looks pretty clueless on the ground. Unless he's been training BJJ several hours per day regularly since those submission losses, I imagine any high-octane grappler who gets his hands on him is going to have a field day. Can you imagine Frankie Edgar not mauling him from bell to bell like he did against a legitimate grappler in Swanson? Or Mendes not being able to take him down anytime he wants and establish whatever positions he wants? I can't.
I would wager that during his first 2 submission losses he had next to no ground experience. Clueless. However I just rewatched his fight against Dave Hill. For what its worth Dave Hill is predominately a submission grappler for his fighting style and has found a pretty decent record with 9 of his 12 wins coming by submission and his only submission loss coming Conor. I don't make any claims that Dave Hill is some sort of savant and I'm sure the grappling in Ireland is weaker than most areas. I only point out that Conor won via submission against a fighter who's main strength was BJJ and has found success primarily through it at the regional level.
Now watching the fight itself, if I had to go purely by technique, I'd say Hill was still the better grappler. Not to discredit Conor's submission but the shots Hill took and the fact the Conor had a very noticeable size advantage definitely were factors. Conor handled himself well on the ground given his experience. Big things that stuck out in the fight was that his top control was lack luster as was his passing game, only really finding success after Hill started to tire out. However his defensive game seemed to have greatly improved since his second submission loss, along with his TDD, never really being in any real danger. I haven't seen Hill's other fights but it looks like he was playing around with the rubber guard only briefly before this fight, hanging out mostly in mission control and not being able to handle Conor passing it with relative ease, so take that for what you will.
While still not a world beater by any means, Conor showed solid improvement in fundamentals. I'd say he was probably the equivalent of a blue belt. Being about 19 months since his last submission loss where I assumed he had little or no grappling experience it shows, at the very least, consistent training.
I actually haven't seen the Holloway fight. I should get around to watching it beyond the highlights. Weird I've seen the Hill fight 3 times before seeing it once.
I want to end with the fact that its on record claiming he's a brown belt under Kav, who's a black belt with lineage that leads back to the Machados. He also trains with Gunnar regularly, who's a world champion. While they are his coach and training partner, both take pride in their BJJ and I would trust their assessment of Conor's grappling ability.
It'll be interesting to see how Conor handles someone some who could take him down consistently. I'd imagine he work less on his guard, abandoning most attempt at working anything from the bottom and prioritize getting back to his feet ASAP. The question leads more down to if his guard is just good enough to prevent from being passed before creating the space necessary to return to his feet.
