Cobey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 07, 2018 8:03 am
Conor was definitely missing his usual swagger. Even when buffer was doing the intros, I said he's not in this. He doesnt even care about this fight. Maybe he will for a rematch, given what happened after. But I think we've seen the last of conor doing anything but money fights, sadly
This. You nailed it.
I got worried when he didn't care to look Khabib in they eye during the ref-meeting.
I'm a Conor Guy all day. But I was like "brah, that aint good" when he wasn't agreeing to do the press-conference stuff. He did his one and overplayed his hand. Conor needs to go into the ring with the psychological advantage. When he has the mental advantage (and you can literally see it in his opponents until Khabib) he goes in ready to dominate.
In the case with the one press conference. There was no crowd- only media. He over-talked, got drunk...and Khabib was terminator like. What I underestimated and Conor for that matter, was Khabib was literally taking Conor's sh-t talk to heart and using it as fuel. Where most guys feel flummoxed mentally or lol-it off- after dealing with Conor and his antics...Khabib was fired up and fed off it. Competely backfired. Conor had to eat and choke on a thousand words Sat night.
At one point Khabib had an open hand jab that landed, he stepped back and showed Conor..."I just slapped you". In rd three, after Conor withstood the crazy onslaught from Khabib in rd 2-if I recall right, Conor came out in rd 3 humbled, to me intimidated and put his fist out for a "touch gloves" show of respect, Khabib wanted none of it. Conor said during the original presser, "respect out of fear is weakness" about Khabib and his father....that was Conor showing respect out of fear in that moment to me.
Conor was completely out of his element.
Conor needs to add to his skill set at some point. His "pin-point" strike game and reliance on it...caught up to him. He'll never be a ground guy and that's fine. But he needs to work on "ground prevention"-counters and ground escape and survival maneuvers (which he did decently in round 1) along with yet again his conditioning.
I loved this fight and all the angles to it. Before, during and after. I was and am a Conor-fan. But I've got nothing but respect for Khabib. Everything he did after that fight, I respect that too. It is the fight game.