Paid Members Chunk Posted August 28, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted August 28, 2018 Wow. What a trailer that is. Amazing stuff. Obviously you have to make Khabib the favourite but when you look at his record, it does look a bit lacking. Yes, I know it's the manner of his wins rather than the people he's beaten, but arguably RDA is his only real genuine win over a top 3 fighter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 28, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted August 28, 2018 Thats true, i dont think thats by design, things just haven't fallen right for him, plus he's had the layoffs. But as you said, its all about the manner of wins that makes Khabib such a scary fighter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted August 28, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted August 28, 2018 Nurmagomedov's record is hardly a list of cans, though - Johnson, Trujillo, Barboza, and Iaquinta are impressive names to have on anyone's resumé. And he beat a roided Tavares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 29, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted August 29, 2018 Ahh shit id forgotten the Barboza win off the top of my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 For as much as people rag on Khabib's record in the UFC, do we think Conor could have gotten through those same guys without losing a single round? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 2, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted September 2, 2018 I'm not sure he'd have beaten Dos Anjos at all, and certainly not run through him like Khabib did. When that fight was originally booked for UFC 196 I was fancying RDA to be the first to beat McGregor in the Octagon. Then he broke his foot and Nate stepped in and took that moment. Saying that, styles make fights and all that bollocks. And while I'd still have picked Khabib to win, I doubt he'd have looked as impressive against Aldo and Alvarez as McGregor did either. I am actually quite surprised just how many MMA insiders are picking McGregor to win this. I get that he's got that 'you can't count him out thing' and has made a few fights we thought were going to be struggles look easy. But factoring in Khabib's style and McGregor's time away and outside distractions and stuff like that, I don't really see where they're coming from. Like I usually think Dan Hardy is really switched on and I often find myself agreeing with his predictions, but even he's coming out with some silly shite about this fight. I listened to a clip earlier of him basically saying he wasn't impressed with Khabib against Iaquinta and that all Conor has to do is 'get up three times'. I mean, is everyone forgetting the absolute insanity, disruption and upheaval of Khabib's fight week for the Iaquinta fight? He started that week thinking he was fighting Tony Ferguson, and had trained specifically for Tony Ferguson. That fell apart and Max Holloway was put in. Fine. Then that ballsed up. Then the whole McGregor vs The Bus craziness went down fucking up a bunch of fights and forcing a card reshuffle. Khabib's fight was up in the air and it wasn't even known if he'd still get to fight. Everyone from Anthony Pettis to Paul Felder to Al Iaquinta was chucked around to step in and right up until what, the Thursday or Friday of fight week nobody know what the shit was happening. All this time Khabib still has to do media and make weight, for a show he might not even end up fighting on. At the eleventh hour they throw Raging Al at him. He wins a comfortable decision, still looks completely dominant for the bulk of the fight but looks a bit more human than usual late in the fight. And people use THAT fight to base their criticism on and say it wasn't an impressive performance? Get the fuck out. I know McGregor's always had this weird effect, 'the McGregor effect' I guess, where people look for ways to twist the story to where he's always the big swinging dick, the king of everything ever and he's going to destroy every opponent because 'I've just got this feeling...' but it's like the whole MMA community has developed amnesia since April. Khabib had arguably the single most fucked up and disrupted fight week in, not just UFC history, but combat sports history. If all we can say is 'he slowed down a bit at the end/got sloppy', I think he's doing alright. People seem to be going with the logic of 'he couldn't even finish an Al Iaquinta who stepped in on short notice LOL' but ignoring the fact that Khabib had his opponent switched multiple times that week and his fight week was total chaos. I'm not even saying McGregor has no shot at winning this. I think his chances are slim, probably slimmer than a lot of people want to admit to themselves. But I don't really know what people are finding their confidence in when it comes to picking McGregor. Let's face it, outside something mad happening he's got one way to win this. A KO shot in the minuscule periods of time between each round starting and Khabib ragging him to the ground. It's possible but not likely. If people think we're going to see the same Khabib we saw vs Iaquinta then I think they're in for a shock. And if people think Conor's now bringing some elite pro boxer level boxing into the cage because he trained in ONE camp for a few weeks last summer for the Floyd fight, yet was still sparring Artem Lobov, I think they're going to be disappointed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 2, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted September 2, 2018 Wonder if the Iaquinta performance is what ultimately lead to Conor signing up for the fight? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 22 hours ago, Egg Shen said: Wonder if the Iaquinta performance is what ultimately lead to Conor signing up for the fight? Money is what led to Conor signing up for the fight, as always. We can say many things about him in a negative sense, but he'd fight Brock Lesnar if the dollar amount was right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 3, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted September 3, 2018 your probably right, but im pretty sure Conor could have made the same amount of coin taking an easier fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 1 minute ago, Egg Shen said: your probably right, but im pretty sure Conor could have made the same amount of coin taking an easier fight. I doubt it. Maybe the third Nate fight? Outside of that I can't see it. This fight has the potential to be huge because, unlike quite a lot of McG's fights, this is a genuine grudge match. This isn't just McG hurling generic insults about how he's going to make the guy rich and all that usual shite, this is him fighting the guy who landed him in fucking jail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 3, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted September 3, 2018 yeah, again that's true but Conor is doing huge numbers no matter who he fights at this point. I give the guy a lot of credit for taking the Khabib fight, because for his first MMA fight in close to 2 years he's taken the hardest fight on paper that exists at lightweight for him, and even though it's a legitimate grudge match, Conor could easily have drummed up interest in a fight against a Ferguson or Poirier if he'd chosen too. It seemed like he had the wheels set in motion for Ferguson before all the Khabib shit went down. Regardless, Conor makes serious bank no matter who he fights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 3, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted September 3, 2018 Yeah I don't really see it as a Leonard-Hagler type thing where Leonard made Marvelous Marv wait forever, then when Leonard saw Hagler get taken to the trenches by John Mugabe he thought he saw weakness and suddenly fancied it. I don't think this is the same kind of thing. Like Dave says, it's all about coin with McGregor. After the whole bus thing in Brooklyn, that fight became a lot bigger and no doubt McGregor wanted to strike while the buzz was still there and get the fight made ASAP. And the Khabib fight kind of had to be next anyway. If he loses to Khabib there's still the Nate Diaz rubber match out there. And Nate fighting Poirier just weeks after Khabib vs Conor could make that fight even bigger and lines up timing wise. And of course, if Conor pulls it off and beats Khabib it's massive. Then you still have the 3rd Diaz fight and possibly even a superfight (a true superfight) against GSP or something. If he took one of those fights first and lost it would've killed the Khabib fight or at least delayed it and definitely would've hurt the build a little bit. But fighting Khabib first, win or lose it doesn't really hurt the Diaz fight the same way IMO. I really can't see it going down like this but can you just fucking imagine if it all played out like this?... Oct - Conor knocks out Khabib. Cuts a promo on everyone and their nan. Nov - Nate batters Poirier. Calls out McGregor. In the meantime GSP returns and reclaims the welterweight title beating the Woodley/Till winner. Feb/Mar - Conor vs Nate 3. Conor wins the trilogy in another war. Calls out GSP. Summer 2019 - GSP vs McGregor - Biggest. UFC Fight. Ever. Yeah, I know. It's not happening. To be honest, I can't see any of those results going that way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 9 minutes ago, Egg Shen said: yeah, again that's true but Conor is doing huge numbers no matter who he fights at this point. I give the guy a lot of credit for taking the Khabib fight, because for his first MMA fight in close to 2 years he's taken the hardest fight on paper that exists at lightweight for him, and even though it's a legitimate grudge match, Conor could easily have drummed up interest in a fight against a Ferguson or Poirier if he'd chosen too. It seemed like he had the wheels set in motion for Ferguson before all the Khabib shit went down. Regardless, Conor makes serious bank no matter who he fights. Yeah, but he makes some proper serious dough for this fight I think, and as unlikely as it is there would be a chance that if he delayed the Khabib fight to get a warmup bout we could see Khabib lose, which would fuck up the magnitude of this bout. Personally, I think this is the biggest fight in company history without doubt. I've posted the reasons before, but it really has everything you could want in a fight, right down to a sort of "avenging a bullied friend" angle. 7 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said: Yeah I don't really see it as a Leonard-Hagler type thing where Leonard made Marvelous Marv wait forever, then when Leonard saw Hagler get taken to the trenches by John Mugabe he thought he saw weakness and suddenly fancied it. I don't think this is the same kind of thing. Like Dave says, it's all about coin with McGregor. After the whole bus thing in Brooklyn, that fight became a lot bigger and no doubt McGregor wanted to strike while the buzz was still there and get the fight made ASAP. And the Khabib fight kind of had to be next anyway. If he loses to Khabib there's still the Nate Diaz rubber match out there. And Nate fighting Poirier just weeks after Khabib vs Conor could make that fight even bigger and lines up timing wise. And of course, if Conor pulls it off and beats Khabib it's massive. Then you still have the 3rd Diaz fight and possibly even a superfight (a true superfight) against GSP or something. If he took one of those fights first and lost it would've killed the Khabib fight or at least delayed it and definitely would've hurt the build a little bit. But fighting Khabib first, win or lose it doesn't really hurt the Diaz fight the same way IMO. I really can't see it going down like this but can you just fucking imagine if it all played out like this?... Oct - Conor knocks out Khabib. Cuts a promo on everyone and their nan. Nov - Nate batters Poirier. Calls out McGregor. In the meantime GSP returns and reclaims the welterweight title beating the Woodley/Till winner. Feb/Mar - Conor vs Nate 3. Conor wins the trilogy in another war. Calls out GSP. Summer 2019 - GSP vs McGregor - Biggest. UFC Fight. Ever. Yeah, I know. It's not happening. To be honest, I can't see any of those results going that way Yeah, exactly. I think we see Conor fight twice more, including this fight. Khabib and Nate and I could see him call it a day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 3, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted September 3, 2018 I read reports the other day that the UFC are unhappy that Conor is refusing to do media leading into this. Has he said one word yet outside of perhaps a TMZ mobile clip. I know Conor is pretty much calling his own shots at the moment but we're a month away for fuck sake, I feel like we're being denied one of the potential best builds in history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 3, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted September 3, 2018 Yeah it's been quiet. It's hurting the build up a tad but I actually think it's a good sign that McGregor is taking this very seriously. He'll need to. But the flipside is, he wants to make maximum money but if he's doing no media he's potentially hurting the PPV buys, which for a fighter with a cut of the PPV obviously less buys means less money. Odd one. But yeah, I've seen zero comments from McGregor whatsoever since the fight was announced. Is he even refusing to do the fight week press conference and stuff like that? It's all starting to feel a bit Rousey vs Nunes this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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