UFC veteran Matt Brown believes that Conor McGregor was “nervous” ahead of his UFC 329 bout against Max Holloway.
In what was one of the most disappointing MMA fights of all time, McGregor suffered a knee injury just 69 seconds into the fight, causing a premature injury TKO stoppage and handing Holloway the victory.
McGregor has said that he is having surgery to repair his injuries, though we don’t have any more details beyond that.
But as far as Brown goes, he believes the UFC legend McGregor had already lost before he even entered the cage that night.
Matt Brown Says Conor McGregor Was ‘Nervous’
Speaking on “The Fighter vs. The Writer,” Brown said that he believes McGregor’s nervous energy may have caused him to get injured in the fight with Holloway.
“The reason that happened, I think Conor was nervous. I thought Max said it perfect — I think he was weak in the knees. He was nervous. I don’t think he looked 100 percent himself. A lot of people have talked about that. I’m not one judge to body language too much, because I’ve made the mistake where you judge body language and then they perform great. I don’t think that’s necessarily the best way to look at it, but he’s always been a man of very, very high confidence, and he lived up to that, to what he always said he was going to do, for so long,” Brown said.
“A lot of that confidence has been taken away from him. So you’re saying all the right things, pumping himself up, feeling great walking into the fight but somewhere deep inside, he knew there’s not evidence to back up all these things that he’s saying. I could beat everybody, I’m this, I’m that, but you haven’t won a fight in five years, you’re on the yacht drinking and your last fight you (broke your leg) and you were losing anyway. All of these things are contradictory to what he’s telling himself. That increases the nervousness, and he might have even been feeling good, but I think deep inside, he was actually nervous.”
Matt Brown Believes Conor McGregor Fights Again
Though Brown believes that McGregor’s nerves were one of the main reasons why he lost against Holloway, he still believes that the Irishman can come back and fight again. However, he hopes that if McGregor does step back into the Octagon, he fights someone who is more of a tune-up type of fight rather than fighting someone who is a championship-level fighter like Holloway.
“This is exactly why boxers do warmup fights, tune up fights. This is exactly why you work yourself up the rankings. This is why you don’t go fight Max Holloway after five years. Look, Conor’s a mentally strong person. He’ll probably be OK, he’ll be able to come back and fight. It’s not a good idea to come back and fight a guy at a world championship level. You’ve got to get a tune up fight. That’s exactly why they do this stuff,” Brown said.
UFC Veteran Says Conor McGregor Was ‘Nervous’ Before UFC 329