Connor's Coach's Take on Prepping for Khabib

Okay you are right TD defense is a weak spot, but I was thinking more generally like trying to learn a ground grappling game. Their plan wasn't bad except they just assumed that Conor would get some strikes in, but he did not and even took some. They have to figure out how to strike a grappler, and it's probably not with Conor standing straight up while sticking his hand at the guy's eyes. That might annoy another striker but not someone who's happy to close the distance.

I get your point, and to an extent, you're correct that spending the camp trying to make Conor a world class grappler on the same level of Khabib would have been foolish. I agree with this completely. That said, (imo), it was NOT a good game plan. It was straight up bad. You know the old saying "playing not to lose"? Well this plan was more like "Playing to lose, but not too badly".

If Kavanaugh truly felt that their best chance was to knock Khabib out in the first round (as he mentioned on JRE), the game plan should have focused on understanding the different angles Conor would need to take in order to counter Khabib's takedown entries. This is something that would have played into Conor's strengths, while also helping him to (somewhat) negate his disadvantages vs Khabib. With a few exceptions, Conor has typically had a lot of stylistically favorable match-ups in his UFC career, so he's rarely needed to even worry about adjustments to his style. This was NOT the case VS Khabib, and while Kavanaugh seemed to recognize that, he over-corrected in the wrong direction in my opinion. Instead of a coherent, potentially win-able game plan, he came up with "When you get taken down, just quit". Even in his own estimation, he seems to feel he made a mistake.
 
Taking everything into context, what we know about the preparation of his past fights and his attitude, I think Conor just doesn't like to train with guys that can kick his ass. Kavanaugh is simply talking around that issue. It's just an educated guess, of course.



I have to say it's hard to gauge how 'well' he really did, considering the amount of cheating he was allowed to pull off. As far as I can remember, the only time Herb intervened physically to break an illegal grab, that was in the first round, Khabib passed guard immediately after being stalled.

Two things on your first statement. I think they are very few people that can out and out kick his ass in his camp. Maybe certain parts of his game in isolation (say Gunnar Nelson in grappling for example) but to out and out kick his ass, I doubt it.

Chris Brennan has also said in various postings (what he can divulge anyway) that Conor in camp was always open to learning
 
Which one was prime Aldo? The Faber fight? Things I noticed about Jose through some fights, he never threw the much vaunted leg kicks in some fights when I thought there was no threat of the counter. I don't know if he would've had the gas tank to counter the clinch of Khabib. I'd like to think that Khabib would be able to get close enough at least once or twice. Even before Holloway, Jose faded against the likes of Hominick.

FWIW, I felt his best performances off the top of my head were Edgar 2 and Faber.

Jose had some particular things, which may not have worked on Khabib, but worked really well in general on several other good MMA wrestlers.

1) Incredibly good BJJ scrambling
2) focused TDD defense focused on feeding the single leg and defending (and Khabib will tend to grab after the single when it's presented)
3) Timing strikes off of opponents level changes
4) Suffocating top game if he gets a knockdown on an opponent.
 

The video is time stamped.
Obviously John Kavanagh is a fantastic coach but Im a little surprised by his take on preparing Connor for a fight/rematch, with Khabib. Joe asked him who they brought in for wrestling and Kavanagh relied with something to the effect of "Well, Connor's wresting coach, Sergey Pikulskiy, is a fantastic wrestling coach......." and basically went on to state that they don't really prepare for fights by bring in highly credentialed wrestlers to train Connor in wrestling. Joe asked about bringing in high level grapplers with great wrestling to put Connor on his back and dominate him the way Khabib did so he can get used to it and Kavanagh mentioned Dillon Danis. Kavanagh did mention training a bit with Helen Maroulis and some unnamed Russians but ultimately asked how many guys are out there that can A. replicate Khabib, and B. get along with Connor?

How d you guys feel about this? Connor has the money, status, and offers to pretty much train with anyone, so who do you guys feel would best prepare him for a Khabib rematch? My 1st instinct was Chael Sonnen. Obviously bigger than Khabib but has the wrestling and punishing top game to replicate Khabib. Georges St Pierre could probably replicate Khabib but he and Connor may fight one day so that could be a problem. Any other ideas? Thoughts?



I think the main problem is that McGregor has too big of an ego and will essentially only work with Yes men. That is the impression that I got.

However if they were some how able to get his ego in check I think that Danis or any other high level BJJ guy is the best thing for him. He will not be able to stop Khabibs take downs or get back up. Its almost impossible - the gap in grappling is too big. The best he can do is learn to not take damage from the bottom and just control Khabib in gaurd and neutralize him that way.

I would have him work with some one who just smashes his gaurd all day - because thats what khabib does, some one like saulo or xande ribeiro.

i think trying to stop Khabibs take down game is a waste of time, he will never have enough time to catch up to that. Other than that I would have conor hone in his striking.

Just train by having him taken down and play gaurd for 5 minutes and then back up to the feet right away to strike, over and over and over.

However I think even with this it would just make him do slightly better than the last time and just increase his chance of hitting a good left to the chin.

99 times out of a hundred, khabib wins that fight.
 
Agree with everything you've said but Eddie Bravo says Tony is also going to play closed guard against Khabib instead of trying to get up.

According to Eddie, people waste their energy trying to get up against Khabib and burn themselves out, so instead Tony is going to attack from bottom.

Eddie is right - Khabib is too good at taking people down and making sure they dont get back up. Even if they do get back up, he will just take them down again - its inevitable. He has trained his whole life for it, and unless some one is a one in a million genetic freak athelete there is no way any one can make up that gap in take down/top control experience that khabib has.

Eddies plan for staying on the bottom is smart, the only problem is that Tony is a 10th planet BJJ guy - I personally train at a 10th planet gym so I am not shitting on the system - but there is a ton of emphasis on scrambles and catching all sorts of unorthodox positions - I strongly doubt that would work on khabib.

What would work best is good old fashioned very tough/fundamental guard control and I dont think Tony is up for that.
 
The number one cause of losing to guys with good wrestling is fatalism about wrestling training.
 
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