Coach: Khabib and Conor will do what they want at UFC 229

A coach I know once prepared a guy to box Pernell Whitaker. “Sweet Pea” was extraordinary defensively that the coach counseled his fighter to not try to hit, but instead to throw a huge volume of punches in hopes that something would land. Anyone training to strike with McGregor in the Octagon has a similar problem – he’s way better than you.

However, in MMA there are options, and during a recent appearance on the Eurobash podcast, Khabib Nurmagomedov’s coach, AKA founder Javier Mendez, said they will use them at UFC 229, he hopes.

To me [McGregor] is the best standup guy in the whole UFC, in my opinion, said Mendez, as transcribed by Peter Carroll for MMA Fighting. He’s got incredible relaxation, he approaches it like a scientist, he knows how to read you, he knows how to bait you…he knows how to put you right into that trap and before you know it you’re caught sleeping.

He’s a master, in my opinion, on the fighting arts and he’s also got a ground game — he’s good everywhere. I’m not sleeping on how great he is. I’m prepared for everything but he is a great fighter.

There’s no amount of time that we have that’s going to help us to try and get him to stand up, there’s no way possible. So, I’m not gonna say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re gonna get him ready’… come on…wake up…it ain’t gonna work.

We have to fight our strengths, we have to find ways of opening the doors to where his weaknesses are and likewise. This is basically the classic grappler versus striker fight. Keep in mind that they can both grapple and they can both strike, it’s just one is better than the other. … We’re the better grappler, he’s the better striker, but that doesn’t mean we won’t strike, it just means he’s better. It’s about who plays whose game.

Nurmagomedov’s last fight was vs. Al Iaquinta and the coach said his guy wouldn’t listen.

In the first two rounds, he fought exactly like we wanted him to,” said Mendez. “In the third round, what happens? Nope, he does one takedown, he shot once — he chains takedowns he never just does one shot — and then he started comfortable hitting Iaquinta with the jab. His chin up high, he wasn’t moving his head right. Khabib was doing all the things you aren’t supposed to do, but yet, he was still out striking him 4-1 if not more.

He was comfortable doing that but I was not happy with that because I told him, ‘You’re going to get comfortable hitting him, I don’t want you to do that.’ He does that for the first few rounds and then finally I tell him, ‘Obviously, you’re not going to listen to me and your father, but do me a favor, do half of what you want to do and do half of what we want.’ I said, ‘Okay, can you do that for me?’ and he said, ‘Yeah’, so that’s why you’ll notice in the fifth round he took him down again. He did the takedown and then he did the standup like he wanted it.

He’s going to do what he wants to do with Conor. And Conor’s gonna do what he wants to do, and I don’t think John Kavanagh is going to be able to control what Conor will do, just like I won’t be able to control what Khabib will do.

Look, these are two great fighters and they’re going to do what they’re going to do. Our job is to get them as prepared as possible, but come fight time they’re going to do what they’re going to do. For all I know, Khabib could stand with him and I’ll be screaming my head off thinking, ‘What is he doing?’

If that’s what he wants to do, that’s what he’ll do. Obviously, that’s not what I want, I want nothing to do with Conor’s stand-up…he’s too good.

(15:00 mark)