UFC 205: Alvarez v McGregor (Event Discussion) - FAQ's in OP

Head Wreck wrote: »

Why does anyone think Diaz deserves a title shot, or even an eliminator? Khabib, Ferguson and Alvarez are ahead of him on that

$$$

To be fair I haven't seen the likes of khabib since GSP. He was an absolute grappling animal against Johnson so yes , it's perfectly valid for a guy to say he would give Conor serious problems.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's always a case of "but this next guy is a serious test" and Conor keeps putting then away but I'd seriously worry if he fought khabib.
If (big if) he could avoid the left hand his takedowns and ground game are ridiculous.

Conor's takedown defence looked super, shook Eddie off like nothing. This is a guy who took Melendez and Pettis down numerous times. I found it a bit hard to believe that Conor's injury was the reason Mendes took him down so often but now I do, his knee must have been ****ed altogether. Either that or his TDD has improved tenfold since.

Khabib is a scary beast though, never seen anyone so dominant in grappling. Not even GSP. It really is a case of once he grabs you, you're going down and he's going to ware you out. I've always said his striking was ugly though, MJ was throwing windmills and he was hurting Khabib. He didn't really know what to do for the first 2-3 mins. It would be a case of can Conor KO or hurt Khabib before Khabib can grab hold of him and take him down. Would be an interesting matchup for sure, but yeah I can see them sidestepping it.

sonofenoch wrote: »

That was what was said before the Alvarez fight, never happened ........the law of averages says one day it will happen and these people will feel vindicated, everything he's done up to that point will be forgotten and they'll have been right all along

You're right, and I was actually of that opinion if I'm honest.

But Khabib is a different level of grappler, when he grabs you he gets you down and when you're down he drains you. The way he passes guard is effortless. Eddie is a very good wrestler and I was super impressed with Conor, but Khabib is one of the most dominant grapplers I've seen in MMA. But like I said, ugly ugly striking.

A

Useful.Idiot wrote: »

12gauge dave wrote: »

If it stays standing conor has advantage 65-35
If it goes to ground khabib has advantage 80-20

That a fair assumption?

Nah 80-20 to Conor's standing also. Khabibs standup is crap. Extremely aggressive and reckless with little technicality. It has worked in the past but won't against elite strikers.

And Conor is the elite striker in that division IMO...If the fight was to happen in Russia I wonder would Conors following travel there...given the history of the Russians in football it could get a little 'Prickly' between the fans which nobody wants to see..

Whats interesting is all his opponents saying "coulda woulda shoulda"... they all say they didn't perform or they didn't stick to a plan or they didn't get a chance. Truth is that you aren't in there alone. Game theory applies because you have an active opponent trying to thwart your plans while implementing their own. They are reactive to what you are doing and actively attempting to sabotage your strategy.

This can SEEM like "I just got unlucky" because it can be difficult to pin down as a cause-effect thing and so they just blame themselves rather than giving credit to their opponent.

Lets look at the Avarez fight in that light. Everyone knows Eddie wants this on the ground. Within 51 seconds, Eddie is damned sure of it. He said it himself, the first left jab was a shock to him how fast and how hard it was, so I think we can be pretty sure that Eddie would have liked to take Conor down, if not before, definitely then!

Conor used teeps (I PREDICTED DIS TING! ) to keep him at range until he wanted to engage him. This keeps Eddie from getting into shooting range. When he does engage him, its minimal. Couple of shots and he's gone. This stops Eddie from using a 1,2 combo disguising a level change and shot. Any time Eddie tries to initiate the engagement and Conor doesn't teep him, he maintains the range immediately. He backed off a few times in the first like a scalded cat in fact, which was clever.

Throughout the first, Conor is establishing range. Watch him pawing Eddies head, not striking, literally pawing it at times. He knows he has 5 inches where he can hit Eddie and cant get hit. He needs to be in that 5 inch goldilocks zone. That's why I predicted round 2 because he would take round 1 to find that range. This means Eddie isn't getting into shooting range without getting hit and as we saw three times in the first round, being hit kinda stopped any shot he was thinking about

So Eddie can say that he "forgot" about his gameplan but that's bull. The word he's looking for is "stymied". He was stopped from executing his one and only plan and then had nothing to fall back to. He's a bad boxer, with a wide open chin. His trick it to rush his opponent and swing for the fences like a rockem-sockem robot or to take them down. The latter was stuffed by McGregor and the former was exactly what Mcgregor wanted, a chinny guy to run at him like Aldo did. In fact it could have been over just like the Aldo fight and initially I thought it was!

Alvarez wasn't bad, he was made to look bad. If you put Portsmouth United up against me and my mates, they are going to look like Barcalona. Put them against Barcalona and mysteriously they are going to have a "bad game".

RE: Khabib and the Russians

I dont think Khabib would be overly popular as a Muslim from Dagestan. Not saying that they would cheer against him but probably wouldnt be enthusiastic as they would be for a Regular Russian. I couldnt see Russian football hooligans from the North cheering for this guy from the South.