Former UFC star Chael Sonnen gave his opinion on Conor McGregor‘s last fight which took place at UFC 257 last week.
Former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor was knocked out for the first time in his MMA career by Dustin Poirier in the main event of UFC 257, which took place at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.
Dustin Poirier knocked out the Irishmen in the second round, thus making the score even to 1-1. Dustin Poirier was a heavy underdog heading into this fight and not many analysts gave him chance in his fight against Conor McGregor. However, he proved everyone wrong by knocking him out in the second round.
Former UFC light heavyweight contender Chael Sonnen gave his thoughts on the first knockout loss suffered by Conor McGregor at UFC 257. Chael said that the long inactivity was part of the reason why he suffered such a devastating loss.
“Conor looked a little bit slower than I remember Conor,” Sonnen said (via MMA Fighting). “We do know as human beings, you don’t get better at something by not doing it. I give a lot of weight to what Conor said that the layoff hurt him.
“I saw his timing off, but I also saw Dustin blocking things, firing back, chewing up that lead leg. Not to mention, not just the takedown but the threat of the takedown pays dividends.”
Did Inactivity hurt Conor McGregor?
While Chael Sonnen believes that Conor McGregor trained hard for his fight against Poirier at UFC 257, it wasn’t enough as there’s a huge difference between sparring and fighting.
“You can go in and spar, you can even get up and put those miles in,” Sonnen said. “I trust that Conor McGregor worked very hard, but there’s a different intensity. There’s a different stress when you’re talking about competition. Look if we have any myths as an industry in 2020, it’s that we had Conor McGregor saying, ‘I would like to fight four times,’ and we allowed him to fight one time.
“There’s other competitions that guys get into. They’ll go get in a grappling competition, they’ll go pick something up just to get that rush, just to get those vibes, just to be in the back, have that warmup, sleep in a hotel, have the weigh-in. Conor didn’t do any of those things.” Chael Sonnen concluded.
Do you guys think inactivity was part of the reason behind Conor McGregor’s loss? Let us know in the comments section below.
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