Conor McGregor must rediscover nasty streak and make opponents feel ‘he is out of his mind like Mike Tyson’ to create an aura again, claims Daniel Cormier
- Conor McGregor was more of a friendly figure in lead up to Dustin Poirier defeat
- There was no animosity in contrast to the early days when he made his name
- Daniel Cormier thinks Irishman needs to find his edge and become nasty again
- He compared situation to Mike Tyson beating opponents before they fight him
Conor McGregor needs to rediscover the ferocious edge that made him so successful and act more like Mike Tyson did in his prime, claims Daniel Cormier.
The Irishman was unusually friendly towards Dustin Poirier in the lead-up to his TKO defeat at UFC 257, compared with the animosity he brought to proceedings early in his career.
The scare tactics and mind games appeared to have gone and Cormier, former UFC heavyweight and light-heavyweight champion, believes the ‘Notorious’ needs to change his approach.
Conor McGregor posted this image on Instagram with the caption ‘No more Mr nice guy’
Daniel Cormier thinks McGregor needs to be more like Mike Tyson (right after KO of Trevor Berbick) and beat his opponents before they step into the octagon
McGregor himself hinted as much recently with an Instagram post and caption which read: ‘No more Mr nice guy’.
Cormier said: ‘I did this thing the other day about mental warfare on a clip I put out.
‘Dustin even spoke about it himself. The aura of Conor McGregor was gone. Part of that aura is you know that at every turn he’s taking shots at you.
‘He’s making you feel inadequate and he’s a bit of a jerk. That’s okay. That was part of his game.
‘This last approach seemed a little different, it did not seem like Conor McGregor was the same guy.’
Daniel Cormier (left, alongside Paul Felder on a UFC broadcast) had words of advice
McGregor was friendly with Poirier in the build-up to their fight and lacked his usual edge
‘The guy with the bit of an edge is usually the guy people tune in for,’ Cormier added. ‘Floyd Mayweather had an edge. Oscar De La Hoya had an edge. Mike Tyson has an edge. Conor had an edge.
‘Mike Tyson was so crazy that by the time you went to the fight with him you were thinking “this dude is out of his mind”. He won a lot of fights before he even got out there.
‘Conor would do that to people too. I don’t think his approach from last time allowed him to have the same impact on Dustin.’
And the ex-champion turned pundit advised McGregor to take some time off rather than rushing back into a trilogy fight as ‘Diamond’ will be supremely confident now.
He added: ‘Now it’s maybe too late. Dustin may not care [about a trilogy] anymore after knocking him out. I honestly think if you’re McGregor, why not take some time to develop some tactics for those things he had issues [with].’
Cormier says Tyson’s old opponents used to think he was ‘crazy’ before they fought him