Conor McGregor's decision to accept a welterweight bout with Nate Diaz at UFC 196 after spending his entire camp preparing to fight lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos didn't exactly work out.
The Irishman tired himself out throwing power shots, ate a series of hard punches and ended up shooting his way into a choke. Inefficiency with his gas tank was the major theme of McGregor's reflective and perceptive comments at the post-fight press conference. "It was simply a battle of energy in there, and he got the better of it," McGregor said in summation.
(Warning: The video below contains NSFW language)
Gassing out was the symptom, not the cause, of McGregor's downfall at on Saturday. He fought an uncharacteristically reckless fight, the culmination of the increasingly more offensively focused path he has walked since entering the UFC three years ago. It finally caught up with him.
A night on which Nate Diaz crowned himself the new king of the moneyweight fighters left McGregor at a crossroads, his future uncertain and his identity as a fighter even more so.
Bleacher Report's Steven Rondina and Patrick Wyman jump headfirst into the debacle. What does McGregor's performance say about where he's at, and how can he change in the future?
Patrick Wyman: Fundamentally, McGregor needs to decide whether he wants to be an all-time great fighter or the greatest action fighter of all time. Both are viable paths considering the tools he has at his disposal. Either way, he’s going to make himself a disgusting amount of money as his career goes on.
If McGregor truly wants to be an all-time great, he needs to shore up his defensive wrestling and grappling skills and commit to spending more time doing things other than striking.
The end of the fight with Diaz, when the American easily swept and took the back of an exhausted and rocked McGregor before tapping him, is frankly less worrisome than how easily Diaz took him down in the first round off a caught kick. It also overshadowed the success he had at the end of the first round on the mat, and how much more he might have had if he'd chosen to initiate a takedown before he was exhausted.
With that said, you can’t feel terribly comfortable with the end of the fight, either, even if the Irishman was gassed and rocked.
If he wants to be a great action fighter, then he just needs to keep working on the things he has improved in his last few fights, though obviously with more efficiency than he showed against Diaz. His combination punching and head movement were much better against Diaz, even if the end result obviously wasn’t what he wanted.
Steven Rondina: I’m reluctant to read into McGregor’s UFC 196 performance too much because, and let’s be honest, this wasn’t McGregor at his best. "Bought into their own hype" is a longstanding, oft-stupid cliche but if ever there were a time when it was true, Saturday was it.
My prediction for the UFC 196 main event read thus: “Unless this fight somehow ends up on the ground (which is unlikely since Diaz has only completed two takedowns in the last five years, according to FightMetric.com), I'm expecting McGregor to dance around, work over Diaz's body and finish him late.”
Even after watching—and rewatching—the fight, I still feel McGregor has all the tools to beat Diaz; he just didn’t approach him correctly.
I agree with you that McGregor is at something of a crossroads, but I doubt he’s in his mansion wondering whether he wants to be the next BJ Penn or the next Matt Brown. The long-term plan for McGregor is to hold two UFC titles at the same time. That hasn’t changed.
The question in my mind is if the reigning featherweight champ will learn from this or if the reckless, spin-kicking, head-hunting McGregor is here to stay.
Patrick: I both agree and disagree with the idea McGregor bought into his own hype and that was the root cause of his struggles with Diaz at UFC 196.
I agree he didn’t quite look like the smooth, measured version of himself we’ve seen in the past, when he has maintained a great pace of 20 or more strikes per minute without blowing himself out. He was clearly trying to get Diaz out of there, and he forced combinations where in the past he would have waited for opportunities to present themselves.
I disagree, however, in the sense we’ve only seen McGregor play a smart and fully rounded game once during his eight fights in the UFC. That came against Max Holloway, and the Irishman blew his knee out in the second round. He didn’t shoot takedowns and work smothering, damaging top control in that fight by choice but because it was the only reliable path left to victory.
Regardless of whether it was because of the knee injury, he played a dangerous game against Chad Mendes at UFC 189, and the ease with which he blew through his other opponents concealed the fact he got hit a fair bit, often cleanly.
When I say that I think McGregor needs to decide, that’s what I mean. An all-time great version of Conor McGregor works takedowns and top control; he sticks and moves at range to get his gas back after a hard combination and strong dose of pressure, and he stays committed to his kicks and working the legs and body even when the opportunity to brawl with someone like Diaz presents itself.
Technically speaking, there was nothing much wrong with the McGregor who showed up on Saturday. The problem lay in his decision-making in the midst of the fight, which was uncharacteristically bad.
Am I crazy here, or does that make some kind of sense?
Steven: I didn’t mean to imply McGregor was acting out of character at UFC 196 or that what we saw from him was unusual. As you alluded to, McGregor has transformed from a cage-control-focused counterpuncher in Cage Warriors to the MMA equivalent of an eight-man blitz over the last three years.
McGregor’s all-offense style has always been unsustainable (or, at the very least, unnecessarily risky). And honestly, I thought he knew that.
I figured his fight with Chad Mendes was a wake-up call. I figured he learned in those first 10 seconds that flying knees and telegraphed spinning kicks weren’t the best way to handle elite-level opponents and I assumed his measured, body shot-focused attack after that was proof he learned his lesson.
Clearly, I was mistaken.
I agree with you on the notion that McGregor’s troubles against Diaz weren’t so much technical as they were strategic. What I’ll disagree with you is on where McGregor needs to evolve.
McGregor knows how to chain strikes into takedowns. He knows how to bait people off balance and capitalize. I’d bet you if McGregor just slowed down a bit and started combining his 2016 combinations and power into his 2012 pacing and patience, we’d have a man that could hold three UFC titles at the same time. For me, it’s basically a question of “will he learn from this mistake?”
Patrick: It’s not so much he has to learn totally new skills as he has to commit to applying the full breadth of his arsenal on a regular basis. Yes, his wrestling needs to be sharpened, and he needs to improve off his back, but the basic building blocks of an all-time great’s game are there.
You mentioned working strikes off of takedowns, but McGregor also has exceptional timing on his reactive takedowns.
He did that beautifully against Max Holloway in August 2013, and the finest example came against Ivan Buchinger in his last Cage Warriors bout in 2012. He used a series of strikes to push Buchinger toward the fence, missed on a spinning kick and countered Buchinger’s counter with a gorgeous level change and double.
For my money, that fight with Buchinger is McGregor's masterpiece.
As we saw at the end of the first round against Diaz, McGregor knows what he’s doing from top position. He has great posture, he knows how to stay heavy and defend submissions, his passes are technical and quick, and he can drop absolute bombs. Why not use that more?
So yes, McGregor already has the skills he needs, but it’s not just a matter of going out and deciding to use them one day. He needs to work consistently on fighting smarter in his sparring sessions. His coaches need to push it, and he himself needs to buy in. The question is whether he’d rather do that or would rather work on the kinds of things he’s doing now.
Don't believe anybody who tells you McGregor isn't a great fighter or who questions his run in the UFC. He's already great, and he could be even more.
