Can Conor McGregor make the necessary adjustments?

can conor mcgregor make the necessary changes to beat dustin poirier and this match i i will tell you i spent a lot of time breaking down fights guys but it comes from the x's and o's it comes with the punch followed by the kick this guy southpaw this guy's orthodox it always comes to that but the one thing that i know because i had done it the one thing that fellow fighters know is the x's and o's that everybody sees at home are three and four and five down the list it's going to start with grit it's going to start with toughness it's going to be followed by heart condition is something that you can weaponize and make the other guy fold i mean it's one of these things where when you bring it to the audience you're always talking about the jab followed by the cross but it's a different mindset known as an intangible however if the audience can't see it you can't entertain anybody by talking about it so we never do but i bring this into you because this fight is going to be a physical battle it is not going to be a mental test it's not we have seen these guys both on highs both at lowe's both trying to come up both that have already made it both have fought for championships and now they're going to this super huge fight where there's no belt even on the line this is not a mental battle this is going to be physical so can conor make the adjustments and you've got to start step one and we saw this with our own eyes but we also will listen to connor we'll take conor's opinion for the calf kick problematic can conor stop that and there's only a couple of ways that you can defend a calf kick one you could just bring it up and block if you guys don't know it bring it up and block means think about what weidman did to anderson silva the night that anderson had that that accent with his leg that was called a check wyden was able to bring his leg up turn it to where the shin was coming cause damage back to the opponent if you defend a kick correctly if you defend a kit correctly you will hurt your opponent far greater than if you landed a kick effectively defense to kicks can be not only fight any they can be career ending and again just as example think back think of what happened to anderson he was the offensive man weidman on defense right i mean you see what happens kicks are very dangerous for this reason you have to set them up perfectly one thing that makes a calf kick so compelling is even if the person checks it it does less damage to you 101 and stay with me here you want to kick a guy in the thigh and when i say 101 i'm talking about when kicks were shown to the world of mixed martial arts done in 1995 by a man named marco who was it's the thigh now if you'd studied kickboxing before this you would have already known that trick i'm speaking purely to mixed martial arts when marco huwa showed this to our sport it was the thigh everybody that came along after marco who was all the way to chuck liddell just to name a great striker all went for the thigh benson henderson is the one that brought this technique to the calf to the world of mma sure benson grabbed it glory kickboxing something along these lines but the calf kick is totally different it doesn't hurt your opponent is bad however your risk versus reward is much higher much higher if the guy defends it yes offensively you're not going to hit him hurt him as bad in one kick as if you hit him in the thigh however his ability to defend it is going to be greatly different let me tell you about a knight tim sylvia became the champion of the world he became the champion of the world because rico rodriguez threw a kick and while rico was on one foot tim threw one straight down the middle and knocked him out that's the other defense to a kick i've now shown you both one defense is what weidman did and the other is to throw a straight right down the middle either one of those will get the guy to stop kicking i want to bring this to you though i want you to be aware in case you saw conor got hit with those kicks and you're thinking well it's only four months in between fights and he's not gonna be able to build a skill set good enough no excuse me he's only got there's two things he can do there's no other things created he can check the kick or he can respond to the kick there's no other technique that's even created the question becomes how was poirier setting it up and that's not a question for us to answer that's a question for connor that's the one thing conor's going to have to learn how did he set this up how did i not see this coming what did he put in front of me was it a faint some guys will say something to you hey boom make you look right some guys will faint some guys will hide it a couple of punches kick comes last you don't see it coming you're too busy but there's only so many things you can do okay it's like music there's only so many notes and you don't have to all of a sudden get a whole lot better or even be the smartest guy in the room you do have to identify how did he set this up why was i not seeing this kick come it's not about the damage of the kick or the mere fact that you don't want that kick to come how did it come because nothing in this sport will come without something before it nothing no punch is ever thrown without something now that's your job as coaches to sit down and break down each and every opponent that you could possibly have because they're all different there's a number of things that you can do but guy's going to throw a cr he will always throw a jab in front of it by example he will always take one step this side before he throws it he'll always move his shoulders before he throws it or something along these lines you've now got to figure out what it was and as far as pouring doing that to connor it's going to be a little bit tough because poury broke that weapon out exclusive almost almost exclusive to that night so things get a little bit trickier on mcgregor's side when coach cavanaugh sits down to break this down he doesn't get to bring up pourier's last 10 fights and figure out all the opponents he did it too in addition to his pupil conor mcgregor no coach cavanaugh's gonna have to break down one fight of which he has one round to identify one technique it's hard it's hard when you want to talk about can conor flip the script and conor's talk about doing things mental putting himself back in trying less comfortable positions and situations to try to get it at a required outcome this isn't mental conor didn't quit conor got knocked out now the only reason conor's face was there to get knocked out is because his leg was dead yes i'm sure mentally he started to fade i'm sure when connor steven said well shayla i was actually starting to fade i understand that he was found himself in a fight that was harder than he thought it was going to be and whenever that happens things unravel very quickly however your opponent's feeling whatever you're feeling all the anxiety that you have of a man i just want tonight over he's feeling it too who can stay in here longer conor wasn't able to stay in he wasn't able to stay in because he couldn't protect his face he couldn't protect his face because he didn't have his feet under him anymore i want to go back to an example that i i referenced a moment ago which was the night tim sylvia knocked out rico rico threw a kick okay if you guys haven't seen this but if you haven't just didn't know what was aware this was a very important night and a very important match for you to study and know about rico arguably particularly at that time was better than tim rico was very good fighter tim very long very tall hit real hard when rico came out and led with a kick and all tim did is throw a straight down the middle that is something that is a lot of work i'm making it sounds like he threw a kick and he did it's a lot of work it's a lot of timing you have to know exactly where your opponent's at and when he does it problem for rico okay there's nowhere to go when you're throwing a kick one foot is now on the ground there's nowhere to go so when you take the risk to throw a kick your entire body is going to be stationary there's things you can do starting with the setup followed by stepping outside third keeping your hands up a number of things that athletes who get knocked out don't do but there's ways to protect it so there's still reasons that you should throw a kick but for the most part kicks are secondary in the world of kickboxing where you can go out and kick and box the sport of kickboxing's organizing body had to put a rule in place that you must throw three kicks per round or you could lose a point why because kicking isn't very effective in a fight so guys would go into kickboxing and throw no kicks and win fights you do have to learn how to defend them you do have to learn what those looks are like but the hands are far greater tool than kicks proven to the point that kickboxers quit throwing kicks and only started to throw them once a rule put in place said that they had to i want you to be aware of that because kicks do need to be secondary and yes there's an exception to every rule jon jones with that reach can come off start a fight with a kick the general rule though in the general rule that does need to be observed and be followed is you finish with the kick start with the hands finish with a kick don't walk in and start with a kick that was the mistake that rico made now i'm only bringing this to you because before you think there has to be a a massive sit down and meeting of the minds for conor mcgregor to learn how to stop that kid good news if you're team mcgregor there's only two things you can do and of those two things you only need to do one of them but you can stop that kick in its entirety you can stop that threat from ever happening if you can just figure out what the setup was and it's going to be hard conor's in a real position here he's gonna have to really close his eyes he's gonna have to really take himself back and try to remember that moment or he's not going to be able to identify it he's not going to be able to identify it he can sit with his coaches his coaches can say okay we think that we found and they might be right but conor's gonna have to participate here greatly and i will just share with you a lot of times when you are in a physical battle that isn't a mental battle you'll get it wrong i have a match i'm just gonna personalize throw myself in this but i had an opponent named ethan bosch and i could beat ethan bosch i have beat nathan bosh but ethan bosch could whip me too he could whip in the world of wrestling there's something called a technical fall technical fall is essentially the mercy rule where you get so many points ahead the referee let's just stop there's no point in going on let's just stop i could beat ethan bosch but ethan bosch could technical fall me but he did it with one move and i knew i was going to see bosch at the olympic trials so my way of getting ready for bosh whose one move was a front headlock my way of getting ready for bosch was to wake up earlier and run further was to stay after and lift weights i was looking to get better and tougher the wrong way this was a situation chael you have to stop one technique so instead of running and instead of lifting how much time today did you spend on defense of the one technique that's caused you problems with this one athlete who you know you're going to see in the semifinals for the olympic trials none i spent none i spent no time breaking down that technique i spent no time looking at footage i spent no time talking talking to experts i spent no time on the mat on this one technique i knew i had one technical issue but i thought if i got stronger and in better shape and could go harder i could be why why would i think that why would i think that that doesn't make any sense i'm having a technical issue with the technique and i'm solving that by running i'm solving that by doing overhead prep what would i possibly have been thinking where was my mom where was my dad i mean there was people i should have just somebody should have come to me and said jail this guy's gonna front headlock you and he's gonna kill he's gonna choke you to death and score a ton of points work on that position it never crossed my mind it didn't even cross my mind after the olympic trials when i did get put in that position when he did do it to me it was about 15 years after the fact that i look back on that and go why didn't i learn how to defend a front headlock if my problem with bosch is a front headlock why am i traveling all over the world working with all of these guys perfecting my arm drag and my duck under and my gut wrench i have a front headlock issue waiting in front of me in the semifinals why am i not working on the front headlock if you know there's a problem go to the problem if the guy's got his hands locked around you and you can't move the lock is the problem if a guy's got his hands locked around you and the lock's the problem why are you smacking him in the head the head isn't the problem the problem is the luck go to the lock go to the problem i bring this to you because connor's talking about he's going to lock down he's going to do things differently that's for mental this isn't going to be a mental battle this is a physical battle can mcgregor stop the kicks can he stop the kick so he's light on his feet so that he has motion so that he can get his head out of the way so that he can get that left hand firing and it's always tough right you never know do i need to focus on the mental side and get a little tougher do i need to focus on the physical side and get a little bit more strategic it's always tough to know it's very tough to identify i am submitting for you that this is a physical battle conor's gonna need to learn how to stop that kick there's only two techniques to stop that kick in the history of time only two has ever been created he can lift that knee or he can he can respond down the middle even better than that would be to avoid it coming in the first place so now he's got to ask himself what was the setup

Channel: Chael Sonnen

Views: 199,703

Rating: 4.8889494 out of 5

Keywords: MMA, mixed martial arts, Chael Sonnen, UFC, Bellator, Ultimate Fighting Championships, Bellator MMA, MMA Fights, MMA podcast, Beyond the Fight, Chael Sonnen podcast, mma fights, Fighter, Bad Guy Inc, Mean Street, Mean Street Coffee, Conor McGregor, Dustin Poirier, UFC Champ Champ, UFC Champion, UFC Lightweight

Id: XQMG8ES-cY8

Length: 14min 30sec (870 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 07 2021