What should be a gameplan for Poirier to beat Khabib?

He got mounted and pinned by Eddie Alvarez. That says enough about his ground game.

The striking is obviously elite but it won't matter if he can't use it.
We'll see. Khabib has to fight a perfect fight and if he starts tiring or gets sloppy with his takedowns like he has been known to, Dustin will light him up I have no doubt about that.
 
Everyone here is correct in how to do it (sprawl and brawl ) . The problem is actually implementing the plan.
Right. It's not something he has done in the past. Posters in this thread are suggesting he do something different than he's ever done.

That doesn't mean it isn't his best approach (which was the question). It just means it's even harder than usual, and even harder than it sounds.

This big Dustin fan isn't very optimistic, and I hope I'm wrong.
 
Style make fights and Dustin has a very similar style to McGregor. Yes, his grappling is better than Conor’s but takedown defense is weak. How is he going to stop Khabib’s takedowns when he has 69% takedown defense against mostly strikers?
Dustin and Conor do not fight a like at all and Dustin's cardio can go all day.
he doesnt fade or lose power and wilt like Conor. He beat the brakes off of max for 5 straight rounds and Couldve went two more.
 
Dustin has one of the worst TDD's in the entire division, if Jim Miller, Alvarez and Pettis can get him down Khabib is going to maul him.

I didn't say Khabib would not take him down. Miller, Alvarez, and Pettis may have gotten DP down......turns out that wasn't a clear path to victory for any of them.
 
Dustin and Conor do not fight a like at all and Dustin's cardio can go all day.
he doesnt fade or lose power and wilt like Conor. He beat the brakes off of max for 5 straight rounds and Couldve went two more.
He's gonna need that cardio.

So if he does get taken down in, say, minute 2 of round 1, he's still going to need to conserve energy. Does he work to get back up? Hold and stall (which no one has been able to do successfully to Khabib yet)? Offense from his back, while avoiding having Khabib wrap his body / advance position?

I honestly don't have a good answer to my own questions.
 
Dustin has to keep his back off the cage at all costs. Stick and move baby that's his only shot.
 
Dustin has one of the worst TDD's in the entire division, if Jim Miller, Alvarez and Pettis can get him down Khabib is going to maul him.
Ever heard of the element of surprise? Who the hell would expect Pettis to be shooting takedowns? I think he knows what khabib is gonna do.

Ps Dustin beat all those guys anyway.
 
Good way to get taken down...

You're going down anyway.

Al should've put it on Khabib, but he was looking for that one big shot in the later rounds, and he didn't want to get taken down again. He regrets doing that - right out of his mouth.
 
Dustin has to keep his back off the cage at all costs. Stick and move baby that's his only shot.
So again, he has to learn a completely new (to him) standup approach. While somehow somehow keeping his power and boxing at the same level.

And I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just adding context to the difficulty of what it is we're talking about. Poirier has never been a stick-and-move fighter. I'm sure I haven't seen all his fights, so if someone wants to prove me wrong with examples, I'd gladly listen.
 
So again, he has to learn a completely new (to him) standup approach. While somehow somehow keeping his power and boxing at the same level.
Yeah pretty much unless you can think of a better way to beat Khabib with Dustin's skillset. He cannot get backed against the cage or he's going down for sure. He has to try to turn the fight into the most boring point fighting contest imaginable where Dustin turns into a running Carlos Condit.
 
It doesn't matter what gameplan you come up with, being in the octagon itself is a different story. Shit happens all the time on the fly. I believe Khabib's chin taken a lot less damage in his career, compared to the likes of Dustin, and Tony.. So it should play out the way, most of us expect.
 
Get the tub ready and fill it with ice and have a powerful painkiller at hand because his face will need it
 
Somehow develop 20 years worth of TDD improvement in the next few months. If matrix downloads for that don't exist yet, probably just run away and hope Khabib rolls an ankle going after him.
 
The only chance he has is to bring cake and place it in his corner and hope he will focus on that only otherwise he has 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 chance of an upset


Note. If he can get in touch with that bear
 
Yeah pretty much unless you can think of a better way to beat Khabib with Dustin's skillset. He cannot get backed against the cage or he's going down for sure. He has to try to turn the fight into the most boring point fighting contest imaginable where Dustin turns into a running Carlos Condit.
Or trust his all around game. Like Alan Belcher did when he fought Palhares, a guy everyone was afraid of hitting the ground with.

Does he have enough tape on Khabib to be able to do what Trujillo, Healy, RDA and other good grapplers couldn't? Doubt it, but Poirier's been proving lots of suckers wrong for awhile now.

Still, a Lawler style brawl & sprawl seems like a better approach to me than what Condit did (v Diaz). Poirier is not light enough on his feet for that.
 
Dude you’re asking the wrong guys, we’re 6:5 and around 275 pounds of natural lean muscle and don’t have time for LW’s
 
Or trust his all around game. Like Alan Belcher did when he fought Palhares, a guy everyone was afraid of hitting the ground with.

Does he have enough tape on Khabib to be able to do what Trujillo, Healy, RDA and other good grapplers couldn't? Doubt it, but Poirier's been proving lots of suckers wrong for awhile now.

Still, a Lawler style brawl & sprawl seems like a better approach to me than what Condit did (v Diaz). Poirier is not light enough on his feet for that.
Lawler just recently got backed up into the cage, taken down, and put in a dominant position by a wrestler. Not a very good example imo.
 
Lawler just recently got backed up into the cage, taken down, and put in a dominant position by a wrestler. Not a very good example imo.
Ya. But I've seen 15 years of Lawler fights, not just his last fight ;) IMO it's a fine example.

If you have a counter to my argument premise - that a brawl & sprawl would fit his existing style better than a Condit v Diaz style limited engagement pecking for points from the outside, and gives him his best chance of success - instead of a silly nitpick, I would gladly listen. Cheers.
 
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I think if you could jab Khabibs face and run away from the take-down for 3 rounds you could beat him in the 4th or 5th. Kind of like how Max beat Ortega.
IMO it's a myth that Khabib is a cardio machine. He slows down a lot in the third but he usually has his opponent rekdt by then so it doesn't matter.
You need to let him burn out in 1 & 2 without getting smeshed. Easier said than done of course.

Dustin is not really that type of fighter so I don't see it happening. One thing he has is heavy hands at LW. He has to swing early and often. Go balls to the wall in the first and try to test that chin.
 
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