McGregor's ground game in the Holloway fight...

[aModerateThreat]

i may be remembering it wrong but i think he had dead toes throughout that entire fight.

 

[EndlessCritic]

His two loses have been by submission, so I'm guessing that's the part of his game he needs to work on the most.

Yes, just like gsp needs to work on his armbar defence because one of his losses years ago was by armbar.

lol.

 

[GrewUpSlapBoxin]

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.

Nah he just got his brown belt in BJJ by training boxing.

 

[Sayomi]

Yes, just like gsp needs to work on his armbar defence because one of his losses years ago was by armbar.

lol.

I don't see GSP getting caught in any armbars after hughes :redface:

 

[ArtemV]

It looked pretty good, but Holloway didn't really look as good on the ground as he did after the McGregor fight, his fight with Bermudez showed improved grappling and afterwards too.

 

[Stoupe]

The thing is guys like Frankie and Mendez should ideally control him on the ground. We saw what happened to Gunnar Nelson when he fought Story. Wrestlers are on another level. Specifically wrestlers that don't rely on just a double but can chain wrestler and scramble. Frankie is a nightmare to him on paper, a guy that should take him down and is hard to finish.

His striking is interesting too, I see Aldo having a lot of success against him. That's not to say Connor is bad but Aldo has great timing. Connor gets hit a lot and ate some low kicks from Dustin. Obviously the other thing is Aldo is world champion level on the ground.

 

[El Chimpo]

conors been working with bjj with gunnar... i think his ground game is solid

 

[SalvadorAllende]

His guard is comparable with Jacare and Werdum... didnt you hear he is the GOAT?

 

[bjjwar]

Yeah Connor's ground game is really terrible.I rememebr seeing a video of Holloway's training where they said he's a great striker but had almost like 0 bjj training.He got subbed by Poirier like 5 seconds after it hit the ground.

 

[MiroHa]

I think his ground game is not very good. Certainly not at that time. Pretty sure he was a BJJ white belt during that fight. Louisiana purple belt Dustin Porier dominated him on the ground and subbed him (Louisiana is a very weak state for BJJ; one of those places where a Brazilian blue belt would probably sub most of their brown belts). Holloway is about as pure of a kickboxer as exists in the UFC right now, though he's young and constantly improving.

Ps. I'm not a Holloway hater. I'm from Hawaii and he's one of my favorite fighters. That's just the reality of his grappling skills at the moment.

Poirier armbarred Ronny Lis, a Brazilian black belt, in one of his first pro fights.

 

[Moneymma]

It was amazing,considering he was injured. Holloway has legit tdd and did better job with stuffing bermudez and fili,and that says something

 

[h0lydiver]

Poirier armbarred Ronny Lis, a Brazilian black belt, in one of his first pro fights.

I was thinkin more palhares v. belcher but I'm not sure if belcher is orig from Louisiana...

 

[MCS]

it's Conor's bottom game that will largely decide his success as a whole. Having Anderson-type defensive skills with a few good moves wouldn't be bad. Having the sweeping skill of Shogun would make him a pretty much guaranteed top 3 FW.

Holloway's a good up & comer and now a tough fight for some ranked fighter as well, but he's too weak for grappling. He'd need BJ Penn-level skills to get it done against Cub or Lamas with that frame.

 

[wisdom blows]

True, but on the flip side - those loses weren't against UFC level grapplers. We'll just have to see what happens when he's put on his back.

"UFC level grapplers" :icon_lol:

 

[wisdom blows]

The bad news is in his early fights he looked pretty bad on the ground overall, had bad takedown defense, and was kneebarred early in the 1st round against a 125lb Lithuanian. I don't think you would ever see Weidman or Jones or any of the other elite of the elites have loses like this in their career.

Maybe Conor had bad training in the begininning?

The good news is that he has done a lot of training with Gunnar Nelson, one of the best grapplers out there, I am sure he is getting good training now. His head coach is a BJJ black belt. He is an elite athlete, tough mental game, he has shown killer striking, good takedown defense, and I don't recall but I think in the past few years he has shown some dominance on the ground even though he usually has been winning by 1st round KO.

I think Edgar gives him some trouble but I am on the McGregor hype train, if he wins I would be happy to pay to see him fight Aldo, would be a war!

No, but we did see that from Anderson Silva.

 

[0hm]

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.

^^ Has no real grappling experience/hasn't seen Conor's recent fights. (Abundantly clear)

 

[wisdom blows]

In not being able to submit pure kickboxer and (at the time) BJJ white belt Max Holloway, as I noted in an earlier post.

belt rank doesn't matter in MMA. besides, can you even back this claim up? holloway showed good guard in his other fights.

not that this even matters; conor's very next fight, he handled a BJJ blackbelt on the ground.

 

[wisdom blows]

The thing is guys like Frankie and Mendez should ideally control him on the ground. We saw what happened to Gunnar Nelson when he fought Story. Wrestlers are on another level. Specifically wrestlers that don't rely on just a double but can chain wrestler and scramble. Frankie is a nightmare to him on paper, a guy that should take him down and is hard to finish.

His striking is interesting too, I see Aldo having a lot of success against him. That's not to say Connor is bad but Aldo has great timing. Connor gets hit a lot and ate some low kicks from Dustin. Obviously the other thing is Aldo is world champion level on the ground.

No, he doesn't. He was hit like 3 times against Dustin. God forbid a fighter get hit in a fight against a ranked opponent. :icon_neut

 

[YES Cartwheel]

I can't wait to see their rematch...Max was only 21 when he fought Connor! And that was the last time he lost.

He just turned 23 in December and closed out the year with the same amount of wins in his win streak as Connor. They are destined to meet again down the line and barring any injuries like the first fight, the rematch will be dynamite!

I see Max being under-rated a lot by some people in this thread...he is much more than a 'good up and comer'. Connor being able to control him while injured so badly was the measuring stick for how good he actually is, not these first round knockouts in his other fights.

 

[0hm]

I can't wait to see their rematch...Max was only 21 when he fought Connor! And that was the last time he lost.

He just turned 23 in December and closed out the year with the same amount of wins in his win streak as Connor. They are destined to meet again down the line and barring any injuries like the first fight, the rematch will be dynamite!

I see Max being under-rated a lot by some people in this thread...he is much more than a 'good up and comer'. Connor being able to control him while injured so badly was the measuring stick for how good he actually is, not these first round knockouts in his other fights.

I, too, think of Holloway as his best win. Holloway is one of the best in the division and his fight (win) against Bermudez demonstrated his nigh top 5 nature.