>Eh, that strikes me as opportunistic and Gordon angling to get
>in Conor's good graces with a comment like that.

Oh, he openly angled for a job right after the comments. But if he was gonna knock Danis' coaching he would have done it like AJ Agazarm did and just basically said what Conor did was trash.

>I've watched the fight 4 times now. I don't recall Conor even
>attempting a sweep or sub, and his escapes did not look good.
>I don't think he ever even got close to getting back up after
>each takedown.

You are correct. He did not a once. He got his feet out of the legwrap and reestablished leg hooks, elevated. He got back up a couple times after takedowns though, but maybe you mean getting back up immediately. I've only watched it twice. To me, he didn't try a tripod sweep (he's hit one in a fight against diaz) in round 2 where he was getting bombed on but managing the hips of Khabib with his feet, because his hands were covering up so he couldn't create a push pull with his hands. He couldn't execute stuff he obviously knows how to do either because Khabib's base is crazy or he was frozen up.


>I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this, if Conor
>wasn't getting hit, he was probably hooking Khabib's gloves.
>When he wasn't able to do that, he almost got finished (round
>2).

I don't think he was hooking gloves other than before Khabib started complaining. So round 1 I think went well for him. He took almost no damage.

>>recovered guard after mounted,
>
>
>I remember him doing that once. I think Khabib is fine with
>not passing, which is how partially how Conor got his guard
>back. Khabib is not afraid to strike in the guard.

It's not so much an issue of not passing it's that he recovered guard after being mounted which under khabib is a fight-ending position. I think he had half guard (not a good one since he was flattened) but he had good foot and leg positioning for a lot of the fight, he just didn't balance with good upper body control against Khabib because Khabib is so good.


>conserved energy etc. he didn't
>>absorb as much damage as guys who are less comfortable on
>the
>>ground like edson because he made small adjustments,
>recovered
>>his hooks, overhooked / underhooked the arms.
>
>
>I don't remember Conor getting either overhooks or underhooks.
>I will say, at least Edson was able to get back up and (I
>think) break away a few times from Khabib, despite getting
>taken back down again. But keep in mind the Edson fight was 3
>rounds. After watching the Iaquinta and MsGregor fights, you
>can clearly see Khabib does pace himself in the 5 rounders.
>The 3 round fights he goes ham, and is definitely inflicting a
>lot of damage faster.

That's a fair point, but Conor was also conserving energy on bottom due to the length of the fight. I know people laughed at Dom's comments, but I 100% believe Conor was letting Khabib tire himself out to a large extent. Khabib had almost every takedown thwarted by Iaquinta's limp leg. I know Al is a excellent wrestler so maybe Conor couldn't recreate that skillset under the time frame he had but he stuffed 2 or 3 takedowns straight up, just like he did against Diaz in the second fight. He almost escaped the first but couldn't de-incentivize Khabib's grip on his leg.

>If you take this
>>Conor and put him up against Mendes again I think he looks
>>much better on the ground.
>
>
>I think Mendes that does a full camp beats Conor, especially
>now that we've seen the blueprint.

I think wrestling is clearly Conor's kryptonite

>He already proved his improvement
>>against Nate the second time around, and I think he will
>have
>>improved even more by this point.
>
>
>I didn't think he looked better against Nate the second time.
>He just came with a game plan and stuck to it instead of
>throwing everything he had behind the left hand. Essentially
>his/Kavanaugh's game plan was the JacksonWink point-fight game
>plan. Conor even turn and ran like some of the JacksonWink
>fighters do.

People forget Diaz couldn't dominate him grappling because he couldn't get the fight to where he wanted it (not for lack of trying). Conor outboxed him straight up for the first two rounds, and then came back in the last rounds after Diaz started to turn it around like the first fight. If it DOES go to the ground I don't think Diaz' top pressure is strong enough to completely nullify Conor's jiujitsu like it did in this fight.

SO big question
Does Tony's elbows from bottom / rubber guard / funky 10th planet game give Khabib trouble?