Why the hell is it so hard to defeat Conor McGregor ???
Because shit everyone knows he has a terrible ground game and is useless off his back, Right ??
Everyone knew Poirier was gonna beat him.
Everyone knew Siver was gonna beat him, lose to him.
But Everyone knew Mendes was gonna beat him, easily.
But then Everyone knew Aldo was gonna beat him very easily, by leg kicking him to death.
Now Everyone knows RDA is going to defeat him because Conor picks on Featherweights smaller than him 
and will not defeat Lightweights who are so much bigger than him, including somehow RDA who is actually smaller than him.
So back to to the original premise
Because shit everyone knows he has a terrible ground game and is useless off his back, Right ??
So, Why the hell is it so hard to defeat Conor McGregor ???
First off he's a God and it seems Jesus is cool with him so there's that, but if true everyone's fucked so I will leave that aside.
To be clear a few assumptions I am working under that the vast majority will understand and agree with:
Conor currently fights 5 round fights
Each round is 5 minutes
Max fight length of 25 minutes.
Each round starts on the feet.
So conventional understanding of MMA dictates that there are 3 ways to Win and therefore 3 ways to defeat McGregor.
Striking - Which leads to KO/TKO
Submission - Which leads to a tap or a nice little nap
Decision - After 25 minutes it goes to the judges
STRIKING
Any fool should be able to tell you that if you want to defeat McGregor you better not rely on standing and striking with him. This is clearly his area of dominance whether charging forward of retreating backwards and countering.
Avoid at all costs or risk being humiliated in 13 seconds.
Then there is ground and pound to a finish. I will include this as part of submission simply because to do either you must get Conor to the ground.
Submission (GnP)
Can Conor be submitted?? Yes but in fairness anyone can. 
Has anyone in the UFC managed to submit Conor?? NO, so its easier said than done. The most obvious thing to look at is takedowns. In order to submit someone you generally need to get them to the ground and control the action long enough to move into position suitable for submission or GnP (more later).
So how easy is it to take Conor down. All MMA fighters train to stop takedowns so NO fighter can be taken down at will.
According to http://www.fightmetric.com/
Conor has a takedown defense of 66% sounds pretty good to me.
Chad Mendes has a takedown defense of 100%
Jose Aldo has a takedown defense of 91%
Raphael DosAnjos has a takedown defense of 66%
Interesting to note that RDA has the same takedown defense as Conot but not overly relevant as it is unlikely Conor will try to take RDA down, but should he wish to do so he very well might be able to do it if he picks his moment.
So the talk is that the fight against Mendes showed Conor has a weakness in that he is easy to take down so lets look a little deeper.
- Conor vs Aldo - 0 takedowns 0 defenses
- Conor vs Mendes - 4 takedowns 3 defenses
- Conor vs Siver - 0 takedown 3 defenses
- Conor vs Poirier - 0 takedowns 0 defenses
- Conor vs Brandao - 0 takedowns 2 defense (Scored 1/1 takedown)
- Conor vs Holloway - 0 takedowns 0 defenses (Scored 4/5 takedowns)
- Conor vs Brimage - 0 takedowns 0 defenses
Conor has ONLY been taken down 4 times total by Mendes (no other UFC fighter), a fighter well known for his wrestling abilities and he defended 3 other takedowns.
Conor has defended 3 takedowns from Mendes, 3 from Siver and 2 from Brandao.
Conor has taken down Brandao 1 time and Holloway 4 out of 5 times.
So TWO interesting fights with regards to takedowns
First vs Holloway
Conor injured his knee restricting his movement and putting an end to his normal striking game. Even still Conor managed to score 4 out of 5 takedowns and win by decision without being taken down himself. So a few takeaways from that fight. Conor can take fighters down, though he rarely uses it as part of his normal gameplan. His ground control was good enough to gain the win vs Holloway.
Second vs Mendes
Round 1
Takedown 1 - Conor attacks forward tries a flying knee and Chad grabs leg and takes Conor down, momentarily has control before Conor pops back up.
Takedown 2 - Stuffed .... Mendes goes for a double leg against the cage, Conor pushes down and breaks the double leg.
Takedown 3 - Caught Conor flat footed talking to him and did a nice power double sham in the open. One elbow (cut above eye) before Conor slipped out and got up eating one shot as he stands.
Takedown 4 - Conor attacking forward Mendes drops down and double leg takedown. No striking Chad warned 3 times for fingers in the cut.
Round 2
Takedown 5 - Stuffed .... Mendes goes for a diving double leg and Conor does big sprawl backwards, Mendes misses.
Takedown 6 - Stuffed ?? .... Cannot see where a TD defense would be given
Takedown 7 - Conor attacking forward, missed straight left Mendes ducks and gets double leg. Long sequence of elbows by both. Mendes goes for guillotine and Conor escapes.
All Conors takedowns were fro Conor pressuring forward and inflicting damage leaving himself open to takedown. Mainly by double leg which Mendes is known to favor.
So what happens if you take Conor down???
What we saw from the Mendes fight:
- Conor remained very calm and generally did not seem stressed or worried about being on his back. He seemed very patient and expended very little energy.
- Conor attempted to limit Mendes movement to the point that he could not be active and a standup would have to be called by the ref (even asking the ref to stand them up).
- Conor used vicious elbows repeatedly to crown of Mendes head causing him to ask the referee to call the blows illegal (He did not, blows were legal).
- Conor waited until Mendes transitioned for a guillotine then exploded out at the correct time to break the attempted submission. (We all know what happened next)
Can RDA take Conor down as well or better than Mendes??
| TD Accuracy | TD Avg / 15mins | |
| Chad Mendes | 54 % | 4.16 |
| Raphael DosAnjos | 44 % | 2.64 |
The numbers say no. RDA is not known for a power double and has a tendency to pressure fighters towards the cage and then take fighters down from the clinch. This is something that will be very difficult to achieve against Conor as he likes be on the offensive attacking forward and even in retreat he is calm and looks for angles and counters.
Can RDA finish Conor if / when he gets Conor to the ground??
Of course he has the abilities to do so but his recent results tend to favor a NO here as well.
In his last 12 fights RDA has 3x KO/TKO 6x Decision Win 1x Submission Win & 2 Decision Losses.
Submission: RDA has only one submission win by Rear Naked Choke which was nearly 4 years ago. RDA does not look for submissions as part of his regular gameplan.
Ground and Pound: Out of the 3 KO/TKO which have all been in the last 18 months none have been after a takedown where GnP was the main cause of the fight stoppage.
- Cowboy Cerrone was badly hurt on the feet before the finish.
- Benson Henderson was getting pushed back to the cage and went for an ill advised takedown which failed as he came back up he took a big punch to the jaw.
- Jason High (who looked like shit the entire fight) was rocked and dropped and the end was called soon after.
| Date | Opponents | Result |
| 19th December 2015 | Donald Cerrone | KO/TKO |
| 14th March 2015 | Anthony Pettis | Decision |
| 13th December 2014 | Nate Diaz | Decision |
| 23rd August 2014 | Benson Henderson | KO/TKO |
| 07th June 2014 | Jason High | KO/TKO |
| 19th April 2014 | Khabib Nurmagomedov | Decision Loss |
| 28th August 2013 | Donald Cerrone | Decision |
| 18th March 2013 | Evan Dunham | Decision |
| 17th November 2012 | Mark Bocek | Decision |
| 11th July 2012 | Anthony Njokuani | Decision |
| 15th May 2012 | Kamal Shalorus | Submission (RNC) |
| 19th November 2011 | Gleison Tibau | Decision Loss |
Realistically for RDA to win in this manner he will likely need to change the priorities of his standard gameplan to achieve the takedown and specifically attack for finish by submission or GnP.
Decision
25 minutes of a Conor fight has not yet happened ... Could this the fight when we get to see it ?? RDA seems to like decisions whilst Conor seems to avoid them like the plague.
| Raphael DosAnjos vs. | Result | Result | Conor McGregor vs. |
| Donald Cerrone | 1:06 / 25:00 | 0:13 / 25:00 | Jose Aldo |
| Anthony Pettis | 25:00 / 25:00 | 9:57 / 25:00 | Chad Mendes |
| Nate Diaz | 15:00 / 15:00 | 6:54 / 25:00 | Dennis Siver |
| Benson Henderson | 2:31 / 25:00 | 1:46 / 25:00 | Dustin Poirier |
| Jason High | 8:36 / 15:00 | 4:05 / 15:00 | Diego Brandao |
| Khabib Nurmagomedov | 15:00 / 15:00 | 15:00 / 15:00 | Max Holloway |
| Donald Cerrone | 15:00 / 15:00 | 1:07 / 15:00 | Marcus Brimage |
| Total time fighting | 82:13: | 39:02: | Total time fighting |
| Total time scheduled | 120:00: | 145:00: | Total time scheduled |
| Total fight time used | 68.5 % | 26.9 % | Total fight time used |
General consensus states you will beat Conor if you take him to the ground. Issue is every round stars on the feet so Conor gets to start in his comfort zone. While RDA will need to fight to take him down. So a minimum of 5 takedown or surviving Conors stand up to make it to decision.
But what about Cardio .
He is very excited for this fight and we are going to put McGregor into deep waters. He's never fought anyone on the same level as Rafa. - Rapael Cordeiro
RDA has proven he can go 25 minutes when he fought Anthony Pettis however that was also a fight he dominated yet was unable to get the finish. He also went 15 minutes with Nate Diaz who is a pressure fighter but plays a stand up game and is not known for targeting cardio.
Conor on the other hand believes the fighter who uses their cardio most efficiently will be the victor. He targets his opponents cardio and is very efficient in using his own. 
The interesting point however is no one has been able to grind him out on the ground over numerous round so we have never seen Conor pushed into the Championship rounds.
All things considered if it goes the distance it very likely favors RDA but the signs all point towards its never gonna get there .... One way or another its highly unlikely we see this one go 25 minutes.
I for one cant wait and hope it another CRAZY eyed Joe fight wrap up.
One thing is for sure ...... Unless fighters start respecting Conors skills ...... He's gonna end up with all the GOLD