Early in 2013 UFC welterweight Dan ‘The Outlaw’ Hardy was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a rare heart disorder sufficiently serious for the California State Athletic Commission to bar him from a scheduled fight. The syndrome causes most patients to have heart palpitations and a rapid heartbeat. Hardy however is symptom free, with a resting pulse rate of 42, and a maximum of 200.

Hardy decided to forgo surgery, but on the advice of doctors, the UFC was insistent that “The Outlaw” have corrective surgery. Without a career inside the Octagon, Hardy developed into arguably the finest fight analyst in the sport. During a recent appearnace on The MMA Hour, Hardy broke down UFC lightweight champion Khabub Nurmagomedov vs. former champ champ Conor McGregor at UFC 229 on Saturday.

I think everybody is right and you can’t argue like you know for sure because nobody knows for sure, said Hardy to Luke Thomas, as transcribed by Dave Doyle for MMA Fighting. We could get Conor switch him off in 13 seconds with a sweet left hand. Because we know he could do that. And we know that Khabib is going to come forward because that’s we we’ve seen from him for 26 fights now and that’s what we expect from him.

The other alternative is that we see Khabib just maul him for however long it takes, maybe five rounds, maybe not. Honestly I’ve played this fight out probably 300 times a day in my head, and the more I get, I come to the same conclusion, which is, Conor loses the first two rounds, he gets taken down, he gets beaten up, he gets bloodied, Khabib shows dominance, he’s talking to him, and I think there’s a couple rounds with Conor being down on the scorecards 10-9 maybe even 10-8.

The third round comes about and I see the same Khabib we saw in the first and second rounds comes marching forward, and Conor is able to use his superior footwork and walk him into a left hand. Unless we see development in Khabib’s footwork, Conor’s got five opportunities to knock him out with a clean shot.

I think Khabib’s striking is developing. I will say that. He’s very elementary in the way he goes about it. His fundamentals are really good. His lead punch is very unorthodox … it’s like he’s in a left hook position but he lifts it up with the chin. He knocked out Thiago Tavares with that punch. He’s got elementary striking. He’s good at what he does but ultimately it has the purpose of getting inside so he can get his hands on him. We may see developments in his striking in this fight, he may be working on things specifically for that we’ve not really seen. He’s developing between fights, but we don’t know if it will come to the level of Conor McGregor’s striking.

I think Conor McGregor’s takedown defense is okay. I think his gas tank struggles when he is under pressure, and I have not seen anything that will prove me otherwise. But what I will see is I do think we underestimate his ground game. The Max Holloway fight, I think he was very smooth in his transitions on the ground, the same against Dennis Siver as well, passing out to mount. His understanding of the ground is very good.

I’m a massive fan of both of these guys, please don’t let anyone think I’m picking on one side over the other I’m just going based on evidence. If you go back and watch Khabib’s fight against Michael Johnson, we saw him get hit and hurt. I’d say we’ve seen Conor hit harder than Michael Johnson just based purely on what we’ve seen him doing in the UFC. So that would be that argument in my case.

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