Why did Conor take the Khabib fight?

[John of Arc]

the alquinta fight made khabib look very amateruish. conor was right in thinking he had more than a punchers chance.

Use your eyes and stop listening to Rogan. He dominated Al from bell to bell and scored 50-44, 50-43, 50-43 - how often do we see scores like this in main events?

 

[Kha'bless]

How would he look if he never took the fight? Like a complete and utter terrified duck after all the crap he was talking and his boy getting slapped and so on, he had to step up. Of course his degenerate low IQ fans would claim he won the war if he never took the fight...

 

[TR1]

the alquinta fight made khabib look very amateruish. conor was right in thinking he had more than a punchers chance.

No it didn't lol.

He utterly shut Al out.

 

[Warfist]

It makes sense that the troglodytes who think the election was rigged are the same ones who can't string together a coherent sentence.

Conor is a beta، just as Khabib is. And he and his fanboys cry and whinge, just as you're doing when it comes to the election.

 

[ejazahmednit]

Conor takes fight which make him money or enhance his marketability
The khabib fight did both
If he hadn't taken the fight he would ve been labelled a duck, he instead chose to make money and avoided the duck tag

 

[original doom]

No it didn't lol.

He utterly shut Al out.

alquinta was a quick replacement who made the unstopable khabib look average. im not sure if you were posting on sherdog at the time but the whole forum thought khabib looked like a bum.

 

[Benoitthegr8]

Make no mistake about it, everything Conrad does is driven by ego and money, He’s calculating and always seems to be trying to do things on his terms. Champs have to defend, right? After winning the belt he decided he would break that mold and wasn’t going to take fights until he was good and damn ready, against the opponent of his choosing and unless it’s for a belt in whatever weight class he feels like. Much of it is a power play, but he’s not going to take unnecessary risk unless he’s forced to (Khabib), IMO he only took the risky fight because his stock was dropping rapidly due to inactivity, legal troubles, but also he was getting smeared in the social media for ducking. It’s kinda hard to promote yourself as a fighter when you’re not fighting. He knew Khabib was going to be a curveball, he was likely banking on getting in Khabib’s head before the fight, his TDD holding up, or catching him early. Point is it was a risk worth taking obviously add in the money and prestige of winning back the belt, rinse and repeat, and here we are...

 

[stiltfoxx]

This is a great question TS and one I’ve pondered myself. For everyone who said money, I’d argue Khabib wasn’t a huge draw in either the previous Iaquinta or Barboza fights. Conor would always be the upside and draw money with whoever he chose to fight and he had other options. For example he was planning to fight RDA for the interim Welterweight title at UFC 225 and looking back now would have had a better chance of beating Woodley for the Welterweight title, who we now know was on the cliffedge of decline than Khabib. At least Woodley would have stood for him.

Secondly, he actually had lots of other options: the perpetual trilogy with Nate Diaz, rematch Aldo at catch-weight or another ill-advised foray into boxing (which might have actually made him more money and provided the same opportunity to promote his Whiskey).

Thirdly, having made all the money with Floyd he could simply have retired as the Champ Champ and left the question as to how he’d have done against Khabib forever as speculation in the minds of the fans. Rather than take the risk of being Khabibed in a humiliating Michael Johnsonesque fashion.

However, I think two things meant that he decided to fight Khabib. One was that the narrative around Khabib in 2018 (following the Iaquinta fight) was different than it is in 2021 (following the Conor, Dustin, Gaethje fights). So for everyone who is saying he wanted to challenge himself against the undefeated streak and the greatest Lightweight of all time this isn’t the case. Conor and many people viewed Khabib as having a padded record and not having fought anyone (a peaking RDA aside) of significance.

Directly after the Iaquinta fight the narrative doing the rounds was that in a five round fight, if you could survive the first two rounds, Khabib would slow and anyone with decent striking would have their chance. This was the narrative put out there by varying figures on the MMA pundit spectrum from your Brendan Schaubs, your Dan Hardy’s and even your Weasels.

Dan Hardy in particular cited the Chad Mendes fight as a prime example of how Conor could weather the storm and then knock Khabib out in the later roundS. Unfortunately for Conor the MMA math turned out differently.

Rather than KI (Khabib vs Iaquinta) x CM (Conor vs Mendes) = Conor late round knock out.

It turned out to be:

KI (Khabib vs. Iaquinta) x CD2 (Conor vs Diaz 2) = Conor tapping out

As we know now, two rounds of grappling meant Conor had no power in the later rounds and so when Khabib did slow in the third Conor couldn’t hurt him. Khabib then picked up the pace in the fourth, just as he did in the fifth round of the Iaquinta fight, and tapped Conor out.

As well as Conor and lots of the MA media getting the narrative wrong – again it’s retrospectively incorrect to say that no one with any knowledge of MMA predicted Conor would win – you also had Conor’s state of mind.

His impulsive behaviour in attacking the bus and various out of the ring incidents showed that he was acting in a manner where he didn’t care about the consequences. And his behaviour in the Press Conference was in the words of the Weasel like ‘a king gone mad.’ He didn’t care or think about the consequences of losing to Khabib. Even though we now can see it represent a seismic shift in the MMA landscape. No longer would Conor be bigger than the UFC or the sport of MMA. People who argue that Conor did the least badly against Khabib, or celebrate that he won one round against him illustrate how far people’s expectations around Conor have fallen and how high Khabib’s credentials have risen since 2018, compared to Khabib who has everything.

 

[boss429]

- Avenge his brother Lobov?
- Lightweight belt?
- promote Proper 12?
- Delusional, really thought he had a solid chance?
All of the above?

He suffered a humiliating defeat and is the main reason his arch nemesis has 50 million in the bank.

I personally think Conor sacrificed himself solely for Proper 12.

Because he went in with everything to gain and nothing to lose, that's the only way he ever step's into the cage for a Title fight.

Plus he also knows even if he loses his fans will eat up any excuse he offers and continue to claim he is the greatest fighter ever and easily wins a rematch so humiliating losses don't really cost him anything.

 

[Koro_11]

so i guess Poirier and Gaethje aren't elite LWs because they lost to Khabib?

But name me an elite fighter who has lost to Nate Diaz tho... I’ll wait.

 

[Ghostoftheville]

what’s wrong with you people.

I’m not a Conor fan but he’s one of the greatest LW and FW mma fighters of all time:

his two losses were to the LW goat and the boxing goat.

Respect him.

Conor could be one of the greatest ever at lightweight, but will we ever know for certain if he only has 3 fights at that weight?

 

[I am your real dad]

Because he enjoys a good fight and he gets paid to do it.

 

[suffersystem]

what’s wrong with you people.

I’m not a Conor fan but he’s one of the greatest LW and FW mma fighters of all time:

his two losses were to the LW goat and the boxing goat.

Respect him.

One win at LW does not make you one of the GOATS of LW

 

[Dacha]

Cause he focused to much on boxing and lost mma perspective.

Maybe Connor would put marginaly better resistance if he focused on mma all along.

 

[MescalineDreams]

- Avenge his brother Lobov?
- Lightweight belt?
- promote Proper 12?
- Delusional, really thought he had a solid chance?
All of the above?

He suffered a humiliating defeat and is the main reason his arch nemesis has 50 million in the bank.

I personally think Conor sacrificed himself solely for Proper 12.

Money
Has more balls than gets credit for and genuinely wants to test himself as a martial artist.

Realistically it was the only fight he could take. Nothing else made sense. If he didn't take it, it would hurt both his brand and standing as a martial artist.

It could be argued that taking the fight first after such a lengthy layoff was a mistake, perhaps getting a win would've been the smarter route and given him a better shot.

But, business wise there was likely no better time to unify the belts than when he was fresh off the mayweather bout.

 

[TR1]

alquinta was a quick replacement who made the unstopable khabib look average. im not sure if you were posting on sherdog at the time but the whole forum thought khabib looked like a bum.

The only people who thought that were casuals listening to Rogan, or desperate Khabib haters.

Al was training for a fight, he wasn't some random replacement. He got utterly dominated. 50-43 is looking average lol?

 

[original doom]

The only people who thought that were casuals listening to Rogan, or desperate Khabib haters.

Al was training for a fight, he wasn't some random replacement. He got utterly dominated. 50-43 is looking average lol?

no i watched the fight and i thought khabib looked very unimpressive. his striking was so amateurish it almost looked like he never trained boxing. prior to the alquinta fight khabib was praised.

thats what led me to believe he would get wrecked by connor.

 

[Tony Blades]

He didn't have anything to lose, and there was always the chance that he could catch him during a striking exchange.