Conor McGregor has called Dustin Poirier’s win over him at UFC 264 “illegitimate,” demanding a fourth fight once he recovers from a broken leg. Not everybody agrees with that assessment.
Former UFC title challenger turned ESPN analyst Chael Sonnen didn’t see much of anything from McGregor in the five minutes he spent in the octagon with Poirier to tell him that booking that fight again was necessary even with the somewhat anti-climactic ending.
“There was nothing within that five minutes that we saw that was competitive,” Sonnen said when speaking with fellow ESPN analyst Max Kellerman. “You used to be able to really count on Conor McGregor, and by the way, I’m not kicking a guy when he’s down, I’m just discussing what I saw. You used to count on Conor to win the stand up portion and [he was a] really hard guy to take down and you could never hold him there if you got him there. These are things you could count on.
“He’s not winning any portion of these fights, and I don’t bring that up to put him down, I bring that up to tell you there is no need, at least from a competitive architecture, there is nothing here that warrants seeing these guys do it again.”
Prior to the unfortunate ending where McGregor suffered the broken leg in the closing seconds of the first round, he was largely stuck underneath Poirier eating punches and elbows after he made a failed attempt to land a guillotine choke.
The submission attempt was the result of Poirier backing up McGregor the cage with a blistering series of punches that had the former two-division UFC champion initiating the clinch and turning to his grappling rather than his striking.
“That specific position … the guillotine and pulling guard, that was one of the biggest takeaways I had from the fight because that was so dumb to do,” Sonnen said. “Conor usually gets some compliments. He’s a great martial artist. He’s a very good strategist. That was silly.
“Even if you just go by probability of how many guys in main event fights are being submitted in the first round, I could not believe that Conor sacrificed position or that he thought a guillotine was there, which is nowhere in his arsenal at least historically speaking. I’ve never seen him do this.”
I watched the video clip of Max and Chael. Not bad at all. Max has a lot more MMA knowledge than I thought.
don’t worry, Conor will get a shot at the fw title next.
Knot
Fuck, Chael nailed it.
Conor did land some solid leg kicks. It felt like he was on to something there and sloppy when he ended on the mat. So I think he showed something.
That being said, there’s zero need for another rematch. Nate and retirement is the way to go for Conor. Or just hang em up.
I think Chael might be right if Dustin wins that belt he’s going to be a busy guy.
Let McGregor fight Diaz again and if he wins well at least Dana could try to sell it.