Nate Diaz submits Conor McGregor

[popeyespappy]

Nate Diaz submits Conor McGregor and Misha Tate chokes Holly Holm out.

[mralstoner]

I'm in mourning for 7 days. Both my favourites lost.

I wondered how Conor would get around Nate's straightline punches, with Nate's reach advantage. Conor surprisingly looked like he was going to pull it off. But in the end, Conor's weaving and dodging, trying to close the distance, and attack from angles, was trumped by Nate's simple straightline punches. A reach advantage is hard to overcome, even for the notorious one.

Meisha showed how Ronda should have fought a good striker like Holly. Wait patiently for a chance to shoot and take her down. Holly still doesn't look good on the ground. Grappling and BJJ is very hard to counter, for the inexperienced like Holly.

Holly always says she loves to fight. It's her passion. But that's not quite true. Holly loves to strike. She loves to hit things. But in MMA, a grappler often beats a good striker. The question is: can Holly develop a love for BJJ and grappling? Because that's a big part of fighting in MMA.

Personally, I don't see Holly developing that sort of love for the art of grappling. And if her passion isn't there, as she admits, she won't be interested in developing great grappling skills. And Holly's muscular body type might be another reason why she won't develop a love for grappling.

It's sad to see great strikers get beaten by pesky grapplers. But you have to admire the potency of BJJ and grappling. It's like trying to defend yourself against a snake.

For entertainment value, I'll always cheer for the striker. But for martial arts potency, you reluctantly have to cheer for the grappler, and the superior art of BJJ. (Superior under UFC conditions, that is).

[mralstoner]

Both losers are humbled but vowing to come back stronger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjAKkbaBcMQ

[popeyespappy]

Can't say it hurt my feelings when Diaz won. McGregor is probably lucky dos Anjos got hurt. He is a lot better than Diaz.

It wouldn't surprise me to see either Edgar or Aldo beat McGregor in his first feather weight title defense. That's not a given, but McGregor's ground game isn't as good as either his stand up or his shit talking.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

It hurt me to see Mc Gregor go out like that. His first round was outstanding.Though I think he burnt out all his energy in the first round looking for a first round knockout. I could see the pressure on Mc Gregors face as he was entering the octagon. Still, a very entertaining fight overall.

[CapnAwesome]

I don't think you can be a champion for long without a decent ground game and McGregor doesn't have one and only has so so takedown defense. All this talk of him being a multi weight champion seemed a little silly to me. Defend the belt you have first.

[Exian]

Connor said it best in a surprisingly lucid post-fight interview, he wasn't efficient with his energy. Coming from a lighter weight class where you can go all out for 5 rounds, it must have thrown him off how taxing those haymakers become when you put on a few pounds. I don't think this takes anything away from Connor. He'll be back with this in mind.

Still, if he was prepared, we would have just had a longer great fight. He's not going to destroy at that weight class. And how bout those Diaz kids! They've always had deceptive boxing. We see their opponents get rocked from seemingly sloppy jabs that don't appear to have any mustard, but are right on the button. We saw it with Connor and he was suddenly a wrestler. You don't want to be rocked on the ground with Nate.

The Tate upset was exciting, but I think calling it an upset is a stretch. What we're seeing is a rock, paper, scissors situation, with each fighter holding the other's trump card. I think Ronda has the easiest job when it comes to coming out on top of this rock, paper, scissors game. Holly needs to up her ground game, Tate needs to up her boxing and take down defence, while Ronda only needs to take a page from Tate's book and be patient.

[mralstoner]

Connor said it best in a surprisingly lucid post-fight interview, he wasn't efficient with his energy. Coming from a lighter weight class where you can go all out for 5 rounds, it must have thrown him off how taxing those haymakers become when you put on a few pounds. I don't think this takes anything away from Connor. He'll be back with this in mind.

Yeah, efficiency was the key. Nate can pound you with straightline strikes all day long, without using much energy, due to his reach advantage. Meanwhile Conor has to always stay offline and try to counter from angles. But that's tiring, and so Conor eventually slowed down and wasn't able to move offline anymore, and bingo, he was a sitting duck.

Maybe the way for Conor to fight Diaz is to really hone his lateral movement, and countering from that. Diaz rocks back and forth, rooted over that front foot, giving him enormous back and forward movement. But that makes it hard for him to move laterally.

So, maybe Conor should take a more neutral stance, and practice always moving laterally, like Neo in the Matrix. So, more practice avoiding those foam sticks with his wacky movement coach. If he's going to be fighting taller guys in heavier weight divisions, that's the only way I can see him winning there.

Even if Conor's ground game improves, he still won't catch up to Nate, so he has to beat him with strikes.

And definitely forget the flashy kicks. Conserve energy.

I agree, it takes nothing away from Conor. Nate is a tough challenge for anyone.

Meanwhile, Jon Jones is super confident that Holly can fix the holes in her ground game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX-BZL1o85A

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Though something tells me the fight would've gone differently if it was Connor vs Dos Anjos, since the reach advantage over Connor is no longer there.
Connor needs to work on his endurance, he has excellent stand up game but his ground game needs improvement although he shouldn't have to be a world class takedown artist, his takedown defense needs serious work.

But as we saw in his fight it was Connor that initiated the takedown, he would never do that unless of course he was so gassed out,perhaps he was looking to catching his breath scrambling on the ground.

[mralstoner]

But as we saw in his fight it was Connor that initiated the takedown, he would never do that unless of course he was so gassed out,perhaps he was looking to catching his breath scrambling on the ground.

Conor said recently that Aldo should take a year off because when you get seriously knocked out, you should take your time coming back to prevent brain injury.

That was probably on Conor's mind after he got rattled by some good hits by Nate. He could see himself being knocked out if he stayed on his feet, and his career flashed before his eyes, and hence he took the safe way out by submission.

I think Dana was glad that Conor did submit. Imagine if Conor had been seriously KO'd and was sidelined for a whole year, and may not even come back. Conor did the smart thing.