Will Conor McGregor Still Be Competitive in MMA?

That would have been an interesting fight to see him versus Kabib, but the way Olivera controlled him on the ground. Yeah, I don't think it would have been interesting. We wanted to know, you know, what would happen because Tony's dangerous off of his back. You know, like, submitted Kevin Lee. Right, no, he's got good jiu-jitsu. Nice, the elbows. Yeah, he's tough. He's very, very, very tough. I think I'm more interested in seeing Olivera fight for the title than anybody in that division. Yeah. How do you think Olivera versus Kabib would have went? Same thing that would have happened to everybody else. You think so? I think so. You know, it's like, Kabib's just too good. Yeah, I think, you know, Kabib's go to that division. For me, I believe so. I believe he's the go to that division, but I don't know what would happen with Olivera until you see it. See, with Olivera, like, there are moments, like, when Cub Swanson knocked him out. There's moments when you go back in his career and you go, oh, well, this guy's not the greatest. And then you see him in some fights, like the Kevin Lee fight. We submitted Kevin Lee, put him out, and then Kevin wakes up and thinks he's still fighting. Submits Tony in a spectacular way. And just, he's so technical. Everything's so good. He's never out of position. Everything's so, he doesn't force anything. Everything looks fucking amazing. His jiu-jitsu looks really good. Oh, amazing. It's amazing. And you go, man, I want to see him fight for the title. I want to see him fight Dustin. I want to see him fight Connor. I want to see him fight whoever else is in that division. I don't think Connor's going to be a contender anymore, though. I think that's it. I think that's it. You know, it's like, you know, I'm sure he'll make money and, you know, he'll probably fight a few more times if he wants to. But it's like, I just, you know, it's like he, you know, I think time has probably taken its toll. Do you think that's it or do you think it's just money and motivation and spending a lot of time out of the sport? I mean, look, he's training for Floyd. So he's boxing for a long time. Then he takes two years off. He's fighting Khabib, right? You know, and then he beats Cowboy, but just swarmed him, you know, swarmed him, jumped on him real quick, hurt him quick and stopped him. Cowboy was always a slow starter. Yeah. You know, it's like, I think it's just, you know, maybe it's time, maybe it's desire, maybe I don't know. I don't have the answer, but I think the time has come and went. It's easy to say that after you see the result, right? Yeah. But what's interesting in that fight is there's moments in that fight where he was having big success and he hurt Dustin at one point in time with a big left hand. Yeah. But that fucking low calf kick, yeah, that low calf kick is a beast. Yeah, that's a. It changed the look on his face. Yeah, I think me personally, I'm a Connor fan, so probably I go a little biased on it, but I think it's more so that time, you know, that time going to boxing and then coming over first fight back, fighting Khabib. And then you take time off and then you come back and then you fight cowboy and then you pandemic comes, you get a whole another year off and then you come back and you fight Dustin Poirier. Let's think about his last few fights. Let's think about his last three losses. You got Floyd Mayweather, right? Arguably one of the greatest boxers of all time. If not, definitely the best defensive boxer of all times, right? Yeah. And one of the smartest boxers of all times as far as how you did his career. And then you lose the Khabib. Yeah. You say it's the greatest 155 ever. Even one around against Khabib probably drunk off his whiskey as well, you know, then you got the Dustin Poirier fight. I think he's pretty serious about the Dustin Poirier fight, but I think at the same time, I think he's thinking bigger than what he was at the time. I think he's thinking about boxing Pacquiao and doing all these other things that he does in there with my hands are this fantastic and it's time to show you guys that Max Holloway is not the best boxer. He gets chopped at the leg. Now, it's hard to move. It's hard to move. You can't. It's hard to defend a takedown. It's hard to grapple. It's hard to box. It's hard to do anything, you know, me personally, I never thought Irishman could get knocked out until then, you know, so fucking crazy night, you know, but yeah, I don't I don't necessarily think it's over for the guy. I just think the guy has to not take a rich person's approach. I think he has to take more of an approach. He took back in the day when he was on welfare, go out there and get it. Stop telling everybody what your training schedule is going to be and just fucking do what the fucking gym tells you to do. Well, he was still he was pretty fucking rich when he fought Eddie Alvarez. You know, he was already a multimillionaire. It's not. I don't necessarily think it's a rich thing. I don't know if that affects him that much, but I do think it's inactivity and I do think that Dustin got a lot better. Duston's at 145. Dustin was depleted and diminished at 155. He's fucking huge. He doesn't even look like a 55 or he looks like a 70. Yeah, he's back is fucking gigantic and Dustin. Look at Dustin's series of victories. Look at the people that he beat to beat the shit out of Max Holloway. Right. That's crazy. That was at 155. Not right. Right. But still, you still Max Holloway. He beat him. He beat him. And beat him with what Max Holloway is best at, which is stand up. I mean, you see what Max Holloway did to Calvin Kater like Jesus Christ. Max Holloway's stand up is outstanding. So he beats him for whatever reason. He looked a little bit slow in that fight. Max. Yeah, Max looked a little bit off when he fought Dustin. Might be getting in the way. Yeah, it's like he was a little bit slower. It's like, you know, that last night he looked so fast and some of the other fights. But it's also he's fighting Dustin. Stars make fights. Dustin's fucking good, man. Oh, Dustin's very, very good. He's fucking good. And then Khabib, he's not, you know, he's not, you know, he's like, he is good. But it's, he's, he's, he's, he was other victory match. You think, you think, uh, hands down, Dustin again. No, I would never say hands down. You never know because Connor did have moments in that fight. He had moments in the first round and Dustin said there was a moment in that first round. We got his bell rung and he was in trouble. Now imagine if Connor connects again. Right. Imagine. I mean, that's how fights are. Fight for water. Weird things happen. Loose Connor. Connor plays touch, but in the park is a great Connor. You know, he's moving and he's fucking throwing those spinning heel kicks and shit. The thing is though, he's heavy on that front leg, wide karate stance. He, you know, he's always doing this. He's always doing this. Man, when that leg is available for that low calf kick that changes everything, changes your whole approach. And Connor is also a guy that's never been known to like switch back and forth. He doesn't like to have left leg forward. It's not, that's not a common thing for him. So once his legs getting chewed up, you know, it's not like he's got that option. Like he can fight just as good from Orthodox. No, and it's probably worse from Orthodox now that he all he does is work on his boxing. Right. You know, it's like the things that he probably used to do from a switch dance, you know, different kicks, different setups. It's probably not there anymore. You know, he's probably really, really great fighter from that one stance. But now when you take him outside of that stance, he probably becomes, you know, almost like a C or D grade fighter. Well, they're talking about doing that fight again, which a lot of people in that division are pissed because they're like, well, what the you guys are tying up to a championship. Do it because it's not really the champion. They don't want to know. Championship has not even been decided whether or not to be going to step down. So then there's been talk. Well, they might do it again, but they'll do it for the belt. No, I think I think Charles and Chandler for even an intern belt, just some type of belt. Charles and Chandler makes sense. People probably can get mad about that because the channelers barely coming from Bellator over to UFC. But come on, dude, he just knocked out Dan Hooker. Yeah, he didn't take him down and smashed him, which we all thought he was going to do. He knocked him out one punch with that left hook that we talked about, right? Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. That long one too long left hook. Yeah, so I just him to the body with the right hand and left hook to the Bronx guy. You know, the Charles, you know, he's he's been doing great. He deserves to fight for a belt. So him and, you know, Mr. Bellator fighting for a belt. I think it sounds good. And I think a lot of people believe it doesn't fight for the belt. But does that make sense? He's trying to make money right now. He's not worried about it. He lost. He lost to Khabib. So it's yeah, you know, yeah, but he's he lost to Khabib. You know, he almost submitted. He almost submitted Khabib. You know, he had Khabib in a really tight guillotine. Yeah, you know, I mean, it took him in a deep water. Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure it could be probably farted two times in that guillotine. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, when you get choker hard, it's like, you know, you pass over and you're good to go. Do you like what do you do with Justin Gage? Because Justin Gage, he just got he got sub his performance. I like Justin Gage, but his performance against Khabib was fucking embarrassing. I don't know if it's embarrassing. I don't think it was embarrassing. He fucking ran the whole time. If I run like that against Derek Brunson, that's a problem. Don't run from somebody just because he's got a key way to land those leg kicks. He was hurting him. He definitely hurt him. Fucking jab. What's wrong with the jab? Nobody throws jab. Don't you remember that? Remember that you just said that. Thank you. Throw the damn hook. Throw the damn jab. Throw the damn jab. Throw the damn jab. Shit. Set myself up. From everything I see from Justin Gage and then that fight, I was like, oh fuck that dude. You didn't like it. I lost money on that shit. Hell yeah. What do you think about Gage versus Chandler? That's a good fight. That'd be fun. That's a good fight. Yeah, that's a good fight. Now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan Experience.