MMA/UFC Discussion Thread MMA • Page 479

Not that I like Conor much anymore myself because of the way he is outside of the cage but I mean, that’s Conor and always has been Conor. I wouldn’t take him so seriously.

 

business as usual

 

Man I'm loving working from home watching at UFC at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday. haha. Khabib's cousin up next!

The first fight was great. Fiorot looked like a female Stephen Thompson. Definitely excited to see what she does to that division.

 

Yeah early morning weekday fights are pretty cool. I don’t mind this one bit.

 

God bless the Fight Island bubble for giving us this moment in which Conor McGregor gets distracted mid-interview by Max Holloway riding by on a skateboard

 

Cracking up watching DC and Felder plead with the UFC on air begging them to be put on the commentary team for the Edwards/Chimaev fight.

 

Yesterday's card was low-key amazing. Of course, it's exactly like we've said in this thread recently: I watched the last two cards alone and they turned out amazing all day long. I'm sure a couple of friends or family will want to watch the McGregor card on Saturday and it'll be a snoozefest followed by a 30-second main event.

Side note: I feel like it's pretty common for main event fights to be really close and competitive nowadays. It's pretty wild that the first two main events this year have been blowout decisions.

 

Super respectful press conference but man that "We both know." gave me some fuckin chills

 

and the nickname Karen Till was born

 

Till has the most annoying fucking voice. Listening to him speak is actually insufferable

 

Just imagine how annoyed you would be if you could actually tell what he was saying.

 

I wouldn’t be shocked if Conor sleeps him in a minute.

I also wouldn’t be shocked if Dustin taps him.

I guess the only outcome that would shock me is if Dustin puts him out via KO in a minute.

 

Hoping for either Dustin option

 

I think Dustin is a much much much much better fighter than he was then so seeing him being counted out is weird.

Is Conor that much better since then? Eh. Yeah. But He sticks to his guns and he’s got one win in over 4 years and it was against an over the hill Cowboy.

 

One of the greatest. Hope he’s good

 

the Cowboy win is so annoyingly overrated lol

 

I don't think beating Cowboy is remarkably impressive by any means, but I think it's important to look at how Conor looked in that fight rather than just the result/opponent.

The thing that makes Conor so dangerous early isn't just his striking skill -- it's the fact that he is absolutely 100% dialed-in and ready to land fight-ending blows the second the bell rings. Watch how 99% of fights start, especially high-level fights, and you'll see at least a minute of guys getting their timing down, circling, trying to pick up on tendencies, getting rid of the nerves, etc. There's none of that with McGregor.

That's what makes me nervous for Dustin. He's one of my favorites and I'm by no means counting him out, but I do believe McGregor will look like himself in there and if that's the case it's gonna be insanely tough for Dustin to make it out of those early exchanges.

Weirdly enough I actually think Hooker has a better chance of beating Conor than Dustin does.

 

Yeah, I agree with a lot of this. You have to have pretty incredible durability to be able to handle those shots because he is so insanely accurate right out of the gate. No one is graced with a feeling out period.

You either have to get him down early (like Khabib or Mendes) or you're going to have to just concede that you'll eat his best shots and keep coming until those shots aren't quite as potent (like Diaz, or even Max).

Dustin's overall gameplan here is most likely to hope his chin holds up better at 155 in order to get in there and land better shots of his own. I feel like he's much more capable of doing that than before, but I'm still not sure that it works out for him. My hope for the fight is that it makes it out of the first round so we can see a competitive, back-and-forth battle between the two. Dustin winning by early KO would be the only result here that surprises me.

 

For sure, it's gonna be interesting to see how Dustin handles the early-going of the fight mentally. I know he's way more mature than before and he won't be fighting with emotion, but I'm a little worried that he's gonna be so aware of the danger Conor poses that he might really struggle to get comfortable.

I think Dustin's only way to win is "smart brawling" if that makes sense. In the Hooker fight he had a lot of moments of "dumb brawling" -- he's getting KTFOed if he does that against Conor. But he's got a very slim chance of winning a "smart technical" fight where they're both exchanging at range. So I think he's gotta get through the first minute or so, eat a couple shots but not eat a couple huge shots, and then find small little windows where he can get on the inside and make it chaotic.

Again the margin for error there is real tough. I have almost no doubt he's gonna get hurt in the first round, but it'll get real interesting if he stays in there after getting hurt.

 

I think Conor is very susceptible to being subbed in this fight. But I don’t think Dustin takes it there and that likely ends up being his downfall.

 

Can't really see that tbh. I mean if the fight went long and Conor gassed I could see it, but I don't think Conor's a bad grappler at all. He quit against Nate and kinda quit against Khabib too, but when he's fresh he's a pretty smooth mover on the ground. We just haven't seen much of it. And I mean it's tough to hold the Khabib one against him when Poirier looked even worse.

 

God, if Dustin wins this fight by jumping for a guillotine, the memes will never stop

 

This is kinda nuts. What was worth your whole UFC career buddy?

 

I really wanna know what was in that bag lol