Joe Rogan Breaks down Conor vs. Khabib!!

I'll tell you this dude, I'll tell you this, I'm not being a hater, I'm not being some sort of Debbie Downer. I don't think it breaks two million pay-per-view buys. You might be right. I'm not seeing it man. Like when Connor fought Floyd or when Connor made DS2, I couldn't go anywhere. Starbucks, you know, anywhere. Shoe store, car dealer, everyone would do. Connor Floyd, who you got man? Everybody and their mom. Now, very rare. Maybe I want to my show, so I want to bring it up, but... There's something that Connor didn't want to do for this fight, and that's massive promotion. So does that mean it's not as big? Like who's that falling? Is that Connor or the UFC? Connor, he doesn't want to do it. Well, the UFC has a model, right? And it worked in the Jose Aldo fight. That model is you just promote the holy fuck out of a fight. You travel the world, you promote the shit out of it, you scream at each other at press conferences, you do all that stuff for months and months and months, and those things sell like crazy. If it's Conor McGregor. If it's Conor McGregor. So who have they ever done it with besides Conor McGregor? Like that. No one really sells like that. They, you know, a little bit with Rhonda, I guess, but she didn't have the same kind of chops as Connor. So Connor's the only one, but you know, I don't know. Maybe it's because he had a layoff, maybe it's after the Floyd thing. I think it does well. I don't think it breaks, uh, uh, Connor versus Nate too. I don't think it breaks 1.6 million. What I think happened was Connor made a hundred fucking million dollars and he was like, yeah, I'm just going to train. You know, I think, I think there's that. And then I also goes, I'm not, that took so much energy to do all that. And everyone knows me as that guy. I have the toughest fight in my life coming up. I'm taking every precaution necessary not to over train, not to use all my energy. This I'm in the fight of my life. I'm going to train like it. I'm shutting down everything. You can post the fucking me throwing the dolly through the window 1000 times. I'll do the press conference on Thursday. Other than that, man, I have got to get ready for the fight of my life. That's the way I'm looking at it. I think you're right. And I think this is the fight of his life. I think stylistically it's a nightmare matchup. I think it's a nightmare matchup for both of them. I think anyone who goes, Oh, Connor, you know, he can't wrestle. He can't do this. He's just going to get taken down and pounded out. You're show off. It's not even funny. You don't know the game. He absolutely is capable of stuffing a takedown or two in the early going. That's what's up because in the early going, he's got that stinger of a left hand. His foot, his movement, his footwork, his footwork and Khabib is going to know that coming in. He's going to be a little hesitant. He's not going to walk towards him like Edson Barbosa did, or he did in the Edson Barbosa fight. You can't because Barbosa is mostly kicks. Barbosa, a lot of kicks, a lot of tie style kicks and Khabib just put a tremendous amount of pressure on him and then got ahold of him. But Connor's going to crack them with hands and his footwork is way better. He's just way better at moving in and moving out. I think when people go, it's either Connor starches them and gets the kale or Khabib just takes them down for five rounds and pounds them out. I think, I think it's a, it's a classic fight. I think it's back and forth. I think it's a fucking dog fight. I think it's a fight of our lives, man. I really do. I think you're probably right. I think you're getting a fucking great fight from two guys where there's more on the line than just win or lose. I think with Khabib and what he represents and talking to his team, his team captain, Josh Thompson, he goes, Khabib's going to retire after this. Really? He wants to beat Connor and retire. Really? He wants to retire like the Floyd Mayweather of MMA 27 and 0 beat the beat the UFC's poster boy. And he walks off in the sunset. Unless they get him a super fight with GSB or something. He's done. Really? Wow. That's shocking. He's young, very shocking. He's, but think how long he's been doing this since he's four has been fucking up grizzly bears. So he's like, all right, I'm over this man. And not to mention he lives with his family, man. He still lives as his mom and dad, his wife and his two kids. Same house. Wow. That's kind of monster you're dealing with. And then for Connor, I think it's a legacy fight where, you know, he's coming off the Floyd Mayweather kind of train there where, you know, it was a success. Either way you look at it, he made a hundred million dollars and he competed against the best of all time and lasted more rounds than anyone thought and trained for a complete boxing match. So his striking is going to be better going this fight. But for him, it's not about the money. You see him, the one interview he's done on Mac life, you can see it's like it's a vintage Connor. We go, Oh shit, we got one here, man. This isn't, you know, the Floyd Mayweather is more of a show. Like, you know, we didn't think he was going to win that this one. He looked at, Oh shit, that's vintage Connor. This motherfuckers coming to fight and he might get taken down. Yes. I guarantee you gets taken down. That motherfuckers and get back up. He's going to get up. He's going to keep getting up and can be using, keep coming. And we got a doc fight, man. I think both guys can be fucked up after this fight. And it's going to be a classic. It could be or that's for fucking could be bit starched in seven seconds. People should be that playing this on a loop. Like this on a loop. The Khabib's got to get through the fire, you know, he's got to get through the fire in the early going. He's got to close that distance and he's got to do it with precision without letting his nerves affect him. Right? I mean, he's got all the shit talking Connor's done to him. He's seen him rattled at the press conference. He's rattled when he started talking about his dad, he's rattled. And I think, um, we've, we've also never seen Khabib fight with high stakes. Right. Like when he fought Alec, that wasn't high stakes. Al's amazing fighter, but that's not the same as fighting Conor McGregor. When he's fighting, uh, it's in Barboza. That's not high stakes. When you're fighting Conor McGregor, Connor takes all the chips on that poker table, puts it all in the middle goes, I'm all in. You have to be all in. I do well under these circumstances. How do you respond? Yeah. So for, we've never seen Khabib and everyone goes, oh, his cardio is great. It is great. But when the fucking Irish nation is rocking that fucking arena and there's all this pressure, his heart rate's going to go up and he's even like, God, I fucking hate this guy. Khabib's never fought a guy who hates, he hates Conor. How is he going to be over zealous and open himself up? There has to be something there. And we don't know exactly. Although as an assassin until that fight, complete, we're the best of all time. Yeah. Still is. But that fight exposed how good Conor's psychological game is because months and months of being on tour with Conor, those press conferences, kind of stealing his belt and screaming at him and getting in his face and then starches him with one punch. Oh, amazing. But the, what, the, what, what else is interesting is remember Conor is an amazing counter puncher. Well, to be an amazing counter puncher, you need a guy to punch at you. Khabib's not going to punch at him. Right. Unless it becomes an ego thing like you did with Al or it's in Barbosa. We just walk him down. There's no respect. He might throw some punches. So it's going to be interesting for Conor to find those angles when a guy's not playing the game. Well, it's also Khabib has had a history of struggling to make weight that he cannot struggle to make weight for this fight. He's got to be on point. He came into that press conference at 174. They said this motherfucker started camp at 180 something. Like he's, he's never been more serious for a fight, which for people listening, if you're saying like, well, buddy fights at 155, he used to play 200. 200. Yeah. And then get down to 155. And it was not good. I mean, the Michael Johnson fight, he struggled. He had like some real shut down issues. And then the Tony Ferguson fight, they pulled him out of the fight. He can't have any of that nonsense this weekend. Oh, no, I don't think we will. The nonsense, the only thing where like Jamie Tony's going to the fight, I would never go to this fight. I think there's what I would not go this fight for this reason. I'm a complete pussy. I think something's going to happen in the crowd between the Russians and the Irish. I think that's just the animosity between the two. They hate each other so bad. If this fight happens for Connor, you're going to have upset Russians. If it happens for Kabir, we have upset fucking Irish. I think it's, it's gotten bigger than just a UFC fight. Really? I do, man. So hostile. You think you wouldn't go to this fight because the potential of the violence breaks out. Correct. I also don't like going to UFC fights. I also don't like you going to UFC fights. Why don't you like it? Because you used to fight? It's just stressful for me. I just, yeah, just super stressful. Do you feel like you're going to fight again when you get the nerves? I'm saying, Oh God, I go complete opposite of that. Now I try to get more relaxed when you know, when I'm doing standups, I go, I don't want to be in that scared mode anymore. Yeah. That's interesting. My heart rate. I'm just sweating the whole time. I'm just like around, like sweating. I look like shit. Yeah. Pull up that card. Let me see the rest of the card. Dude. If you're Tony Ferguson, it's like, Oh yeah. And Tony's fighting. Right. I know. And he's fighting Pettis. It's not an easy fight for comeback fight. I mean, I'm just amazed that he's able to fight again so quickly after knee surgery. You know, what's interesting to me is I asked Josh Thompson, who knows Kabib and obviously you can talk to DC about it, but they, I go, dude, Tony's back. Like if could be where to win huge fight, Tony, right? And he goes, no interest. That's fight does nothing to him mentally. He just doesn't care about it. Like Kabib just doesn't care. Yeah. He's like not with Tony. So he really just wants to fight Connor and then get out, get out. Or if GSP from, from this, from Josh Thompson's mouth from Kabib, he wants to beat the UFC poster boy, Dana's poster boy, and walk the fuck out unless they give him a super fight. Who the fuck has ever been 26 and Oh, as a champion. I think that's the only one. Yeah. But 26 and Oh, for sure. He's fucking fighting. Undefeated champion. Well, Connor was on the John Jones fight. Matt Hamill before he won the title. He fought Matt Hamill on the ultimate fighter. Roy Nelson, Brendan, it wasn't the ultimate fighter. Yeah. It was ultimate fighter finale. Cause I fought Roy Nelson, John Jones, not on the, not on the ultimate. No, you know, when they do the finale. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's a bullshit loss though. Oh my God. You got a loss from whooping a dude's ass so bad. You know what? As far as undefeated champions who I don't think there's one. Hennen Brau. Oh, he won, but he lost his first fight. Hennen Brau lost his first fight. I don't know. He was like, he had like 30 wins in a row or some shit, but had a weird loss back in Brazil. Yeah. He lost his first MMA fight rather. Rhonda. Yeah. Rhonda was undefeated. Undefeated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rhonda's only two losses were the two title fights between Holly and Amanda. Let's see what he got there. Jamie, what are you pulling up? List of undefeated MMA champions. Ben Askren hanging around. Ben Askren's for sure. One of them, but Ben Askren to me, and I've had him on the podcast. I've said this a lot of times. He's my, Oh, Brian Ortega, but Brian Ortega isn't really a champion. Well, these aren't champions, are they? These just undefeated MMA fighters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These aren't champions. Ben's the one guy who I'd love to see come out of retirement and fight Khabib. He's the one guy that's my biggest disappointment that that guy never fought in the UFC. It's a fucking shame. And, but the thing is like Khabib wouldn't fight. I'm like, nobody knows who he is outside of the hardcore guys. No, why would you fight? Why would you fight and maybe lose? Maybe get out wrestled. Here's the only, if you're going to say something about Khabib, he's 27-0. He really, when you look at the body of work from Connor compared to Khabib, it's not even close. The wins that Connor has are remarkable. Yes. You look at the Max Holloway, Chad Mendes, Jose Aldo. What did he do to Eddie Alvarez? Ridiculous. Ridiculous. That was ridiculous. Ridiculous. Then Nate Diaz win, Nate Diaz lost. You just look at the caliber of opponents that he's faced from a very young age. It's a nightmare. They look at Khabib, he's 27-0. His biggest wins probably Barbosa. Dos Anchos when he was a little weathered, but you know, but Barbosa is a perfect stylistic matchup for him. So yeah, we don't know with Khabib. We know he's damn good, but how good? He's had one weird moment in his entire career. That's again, Michael Johnson, when Michael Johnson cracked him, wobbled him for a second, and then took him down and smashed him. Gleason, T-Bow fight got a little dicey too. Did it? Yeah. Boy, I don't remember that fight at all. But with Michael Johnson, it's funny to me because Michael Johnson landed that big overhand and people go, oh, Khabib has a weak chin. I'm like, well, he's never been dropped. He's never been. Yeah, I mean, he's never been sad. Michael Johnson starched Dustin Poirier with one punch. Don't forget about that. Michael Johnson can fucking punch. He's explosive as shit. Yeah, I mean, he caught Khabib and Khabib got rocked for a second and then weathered the storm, took him down, smashed him. It was a total dominant performance. Yeah, if you look at his performance, like you look at his resume, Pat Healy was a tough fighter. That showed Abel Trujillo. He smashed Abel Trujillo. Remember Abel, he took down more times than anyone inside that option. 21 times, I think. And he was a college wrestler. And a strong guy too. Abel's strong as shit. And that's at least in T-Bowl. When is that? 2012? That's the juicy T-Bowl. Yeah, the real big fight was the Barbosa fight. And then Al Iacuenta was, I mean, as his last minute, his last minute gets, and he still went five whole rounds with Iacuenta, which was interesting for a lot of people. Like I talked to Eddie Alvarez after that fight and he was like, very interesting. Very interesting. Yeah, I was like, you saw a lot of things in that fight, huh? He was like, yeah. He's like, once the fight got into the later rounds and he's still standing up with guys, he'll go, oh, all right. It's so interesting to me because when you talked to anyone from AKA, obviously they're super pro Khabib, but they're like, dude, this isn't even a fight. Like this, what do you, this is one of Khabib's easier fights. He's definitely had way tougher match ups. Like you're crazy, man. They're like, you should see Khabib go against Ed Ruth, who's an all American Penn State wrestler. He fucks him up. He takes him down. Like what? But that's, that's wrestling. That's that wrestling, you know, that dance, that rhythm. Connor's not on that rhythm. No, you're talking about a different animal. You're talking about a guy who is one of the best fencers in the game, meaning can like jump in with one shot and put you out and he can do it moving back. He could do it moving forward. He can time you and he'll, he'll be very common there. You will get the very best Conor McGregor. He's also no slouch on the ground. People think he's just gonna get taken down and like get crucifix right away. You're out your goddamn mind. Guy trains with Dylan Danis. He's, he's brought in these, uh, Dagestani wrestlers. Like he's training with the lead of the lead. He's, he's, you know, what Khabib's going to do. Yeah. It's way easier to train for Khabib than it is Connor. The,