How To Stay Calm Under Pressure

Alright, you guys asked for this on Twitter, Instagram, the YouTube comments via carrier pigeon, and of course, smoke signals. Here it is, the Conor Khabib press conference breakdown. Yes, some of you thought that Conor got to Khabib, some of you thought that he didn't. But almost no one seemed to think that Khabib got in Conor's head. And I agree. So we're gonna stick to analyzing how effective Conor was in executing his pre fight game plan. And though he may sometimes look outlandish and crazy, Conor is very logical about pursuing his two main goals. He wants to make more money and he wants to anger his opponen enough to disrupt their fight plan and of course have some fun while doing it. So first and foremost, the money. McGregor already holds four of the five best selling pay per view slots in UFC history. After this Khabib fight, he's likely to hold five of five and to reset the record as this is trending towards nearly 2 million papers. It's because all of this drama garners attention as after all you are watching this video and not one on Stipe Miocic who can't even get a rematch despite a record setting number of title defenses in the heavyweight division. But this time Conor went beyond drama to other avenues of earning money for himself. Selling his own brand of whiskey.

Proper 12 Proper Irish whiskey. From a proper Irish whiskey. That's what I'm talking about. I came here to have a buzz.

With this and hyping his partnership with.

The UFC Las Vegas, Nevada, the T Mobile arena live on Pay Per View, UFC 229 in association with McGregor Sports and Entertainment and Proper 12 Irish Whiskey.

So in terms of making money, despite the fact that Khabib has historically not carried the trash talking, ticket selling phase by himself, I would say that Conor was hugely successful in that goal. It's Conor's second goal where things get interesting because if Conor can upset his opponent, he can take them out of their best performance, which he has done many times in the past. He angered Dustin Poirier, getting him to be more focused on smashing Conor than on sticking to a smart game plan.

A lot of times I would find myself like being angry at him or thinking about him. I'm not fighting him who he is, I'm fighting his style of fighting and what he does in the cage. So you're not fighting all the talk and all that stuff. It'd be a different show if I could do it again.

After a long press tour he got Jose Aldo so worked up that he came out Stiff and frustrated, which was exactly what Conor predicted and capitalized on.

They owe him inside wound. If he makes that walk and if he is in the octagon, I feel every single. Every single movement I make will get an overreaction off of him because he's emotionally invested in it. There's too much in it for him. The whole country of Brazil, they all. It's all piling on him. That's what I see the fight playing now. I feel him overreacting, overextending, and then being KO'd on the plan and Sick did a play, and I think I paid for it.

So was the plan that you wanted to stick to?

I think it was more. More to kick, kick and wrestle. Not. Not the. Not to box so much, not to throw so many hands. Kind of got lulled a bit in his game and paid for it.

Now, it's important to recognize that all of these men had different emotional triggers. Poirier seemed to lose some confidence when Conor spoke about past fights where Poirier was wobbled. Aldo seemed to get most upset when Conor said that he was the king of Brazil. And Alvarez took offense to Conor saying that he was only a mediocre striker. Now, Conor did not have the benefit of interacting much with Khabib prior to this conference, except for that whole issue with the dali. But in 30 minutes, Conor wisely hit as many points as he could, almost like he was taking a shotgun to Khabib's mental armor and seeing where he broke through.

The man was a fanboy. He bought T shirts of mine. He fucking supported the cause. You remember that, you little fan boy over on his neck of the woods? A man involved in something who was actually. Who's now in prison. Vladimir Putin locked him up for embezzling 150 million worth of money from the Russian people, started to invest and pump money into his gym. So he started to grow in power. He's a glass jaw. The Chechens, my Chechen friends, the Vaynaki soldiers, they told me that they have chicken jaws in Dagestan. And I believed him because I know a glass jaw when I see one. And I've seen this man wobble many times. I've seen his brother sparked unconscious in another promotion. I know he is afraid of a smack. I called this man a coward when I called his father a quivering coward, which. Which. But you actually fight like a little. Shitty jokes rat. Anyway. You die for the legs and hold onto them for dear life. What kind of fighting is that? What kind of man? What kind of way of fighting is.

That unfortunately for Conor, most of the time Khabib engaged just a little or sat there unfazed, smiling on occasion. And it's possibly the case that the language barrier was helpful to Khabib in this scenario. And while Khabib did cover his face, which can sometimes be an indicator that he was trying to hide something, potentially fear, he was like that from the very onset of the press conference. And since he didn't deviate much from his baseline, I'm not reading too much into that. The only topic that seemed to get Khabib genuinely heated was when Conor insulted his past behavior. Specifically how Khabib handled the confrontation with Arnold Artem Lobos.

I've seen an Irish man over in England, let's say, and me with.

Yeah, what are you talking about?

With numbers. Okay. You were surrounded by about 40, 40 of your teammates, Many of them hooded, Many of. Many of them had their own touching. They had to be chased out. You can ask him why you don't ask him. Okay. Why you don't ask him.

Now, if Conor had a longer press tour, I think you would see him continue to harp on this point. Insulting the way that Habib handled the Artem situation. Calling him a coward for costing Artem in a long, Telling him that he didn't handle his business like a man, which seems to be something that khabib really values. But this press conference was only 30 minutes. And once they navigated away from that point, Khabib was much more able to maintain his composure. Now, the stare down was Habib and Conor both doing what they do best. Conor chirped Habib, and Habib stayed cool, calm and collected. Yes, there was a slight sway from Habib as Conor invaded his space, which was a fairly normal reaction to someone getting that close. But khabib ultimately held his ground and made comfortable eye contact the whole time. And while I don't totally buy that Khabib feels nothing about Conor, my read is that Conor was ultimately unsuccessful in his attempts to get under Khabib's skin, Disrupt his game plan or so. Doubt in his mind that he would win this fight. And I say that because of the way Khabib mostly maintained his low reaction, Relaxed baseline to Conor's verbal onslaught. Now, if a louder fighter like Nate Diaz came in with the same behavior, it'd be worrying, but both fighters in this case maintained their own frame. Well, I will say that after watching several of both of these guys fights and the analysis about their actual fighting, I going to put my money on mystic Mac. I think he's got enough KO power to finish a B, but this isn't based on any advantage that was gained during this trash talking phase that I put at a draw. So I know this video is short. We've also done another video on Connor's confidence which I think will be very helpful for those of you wondering where Connor's borderline crazy sense of self belief comes from, and I link to that below. One of the topics that I discuss in that video is the power of Connor's visualizations, though I didn't give you guys an actual concrete visualization to do in that video. If you are interested in something like this that in a visualization track there are lots of different kinds out there, but some that I have been using and like quite a bit come from today's sponsor, Simple Habit. Simple Habit is an app that has tons of tracks for various types of guided meditations. I've mentioned some of my favorites for more joy and gratitude in your life in past videos, but there are also tracks for overcoming self doubt that involve visualization and if you want to check these out, you can see a few that I like for free on the app just by downloading it. And if you want to get more like I have chosen to do, you can unlock every single guided meditation they have for just 1199amonth. So if you if you want to get a free trial of all the tracks or just check out some of the free ones, go ahead, click the link in the description below to do so. Just make sure to do it on your phone since this is a mobile app now. If you guys want more insight into this fight, I've linked as well to some other analysis of Conor and Habib's fight styles which are below in that description. I hope that you guys enjoyed this video because a lot of you asked for it. Even though there wasn't a ton to say, I look forward to seeing you guys in the next video.