Conor McGregor - 5 things we learned about 'Notorious' after UFC 189

#2 His movement is exceptional

Conor is exceptionally quick for how big he is

In almost every interview he has ever given, Conor talks about movement and how important it is. He regularly watches videos of animals to study how they move and considers movement to be a martial art in itself. At UFC 189, he displayed why movement is so important and how good he is at it. He froze Chad Mendes’ feet and had him against the cage within 5 seconds of the fight. Mendes became very flat footed because he did could not gauge which way McGregor was going to move. McGregor set up conditions for Mendes to fail and used his movement to establish dominant position. It’s rare to see someone of the caliber of Chad Mendes look so planted in his position.

The shortened camp didn’t help but even with a longer camp, but Mendes was more perplexed than anything else. After taking his first punch he became very cautious on the feet. He realized just how strong Conor is and didn’t want to make any mistakes. It was exactly the situation you don’t want to put yourself in. If you want to beat Conor McGregor you need to move forward. Backing up is inviting danger. Conor’s movement is perhaps the biggest revelation of the fight and it will be something Jose Aldo will need to study very carefully.