People will talk about the leg kicks. They’ll talk about the overhand left. They’ll talk about the body shots.
But amid all the incredible Conor McGregor offence on Saturday night lay the one technique that made sure he wasn’t dragged into Nate Diaz’s wheelhouse.
Five months after being submitted at UFC 196, ‘The Notorious’ wanted to make sure that the rematch was contested in his favourite realm – on the feet.
Arguably the most impressive element of McGregor’s game last weekend was his almost flawless takedown defence.
In total, McGregor defended six of Diaz’s seven takedown attempts, with the only blot on his copybook coming at the very death when his Stockton rival finished a double-leg.
But the man drafted in to work on McGregor’s grappling, Dillon Danis, was proud of the technique displayed by his new training partner and the Marcelo Garcia black belt has revealed how much work went in to keeping the Dubliner’s game on point.
“We trained a lot of takedown defence,” Danis revealed on the MMA Hour.
“It was probably even with the Jiu-Jitsu we did. We did so much live grappling against the fence every single day. We would do 25 minutes straight sometimes of straight grappling against the fence, me shooting on him and trying to get him down. It was just a lot of work against the fence.
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“And the way he fought in the fight was beautiful. He did it just like he did it in training. He was calm, collected and he was digging the underhooks. He was doing perfect.
“We worked so much in that situation and John [Kavanagh] was teaching him great techniques. It was just perfect. I was really happy with him.
“In the fourth or fifth round, Nate got a double leg with hands connected and everything but Conor jacked it up. He was tired but the technique was perfect. I was super happy with the outcome because we worked a lot of hours on that.”
Danis joined up with McGregor at SBG Ireland at the start of his UFC 202 training camp and lived with his team at the ‘Mac Mansion’ in Las Vegas.
He cornered ‘The Notorious’ at the T-Mobile Arena on Saturday and Danis actually believed that McGregor was capable of submitting Diaz in the main event.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Danis continued. “People like to say stuff about his ground game but he’s going to surprise some people.
“I really thought he could catch Nate Diaz, I honestly did. I’m not going to say with what but I really thought he could catch him.
“Conor’s a really good athlete and he’s really good on the ground and he has an amazing coach in John Kavanagh, who is a black belt.
“I knew the last fight wasn’t a case of him not having Jiu-Jitsu. It was just a little bit fatigue and a lot of things happened in that fight. But Conor has a really good ground game and he’s going to surprise a lot of people in the future.”
On the latest GAA Hour we look back at Mayo-Tipperary and chat to Andy Moran about his incredible, never-ending career. Listen below or subscribe here on iTunes.
