I thought he only threw kicks to get their hands down, but it's nice to be proven wrong

watch the dennis siver fight if you want. it seems that traditional headkicks were part of the gameplan probably because of siver's height and posture

He murdered Mendes with body kicks.

Seriously though what the fuck is in his left hand. Go watch all his fights and the first time the left hand lands they all like shake their heads a little bit like something isn't right

he throws really straight accurate punches



This post was edited by Majithor on Aug 17 2017 09:27pm

He can, but those aren't good examples. In boxing, you;d say he's too open up the middle, and he's doing chicken wings. His last left in that sequence came pretty wide. Some of his best shots do come in the pocket, but a fair number of his best lefts go a little wide. That's good and bad against Floyd, because when Floyd covers up, he may wing him on a temple with an unorthodox striking angle. But if Floyd is able to see it, which I think he usually will, it's easily deflected and it needs to be followed up or hidden in a combination.

MMA-wise, Conor's punches are very tight. Boxing-wise, they are way too rounded.

The next consideration is that in MMA, Conor wants a very balanced stance, and he must be ready for takedown defense. He needs to use variable striking and offense, so if he's in the pocket he's actually doing it wrong. The exception is if the other fighter is a technical boxer or has a really good jab, in which case Conor will want to stay tighter. Diaz was an interesting example where I thought Conor could've done better with his hands. The Diaz brothers are half-decent boxers though, so it's easier said than done.

We can guess that Conor will straighten up his angles for Floyd. And we can be sure he will probably throw a few wild hooks and uppercuts because those are probably relative strengths and they let him feel a bit more like he's doing MMA stuff for a moment.

Just my 2 cents.

floyd is amateur style

when nate diaz is defending conor against the boxing world ...

alas, i think he's right that conor is a better boxer than a lot of people realize, and that he would whoop floyd a lot worse in mma than floyd would whoop conor in boxing (assuming floyd wins).

but it doesn't matter. floyd is the superior boxer by a landslide. conor is just (much) younger, bigger, more powerful, and unorthodox enough to maybe have a chance at a ko/tko.

the real intrigue about the fight is that it's just such a wild contrast and the personalities are huge. and these are world class athletes coming from different sports and different cultures.