Conor McGregor doesn’t seem to do well when it comes to long stretches between fights. His best work in the Octagon came when he was extremely active: three fights in 2015 to win the featherweight title and three fights in 2016 ending with him becoming the champ champ.
It’s gotten sparse since then. Including the Mayweather boxing bout in 2017, McGregor has only competed 5 times in the past five years, and has gone a dismal 1-4.
still, he did get two fights in for 2021, and we honestly feel sure that he would have fought again this year if his leg hadn’t shattered at the base of his ankle, requiring extensive surgery and rehab. He’s been stuck outside the cage, and he’s getting into the wrong kind of headline news again as a result. So hopefully this recent footage of McGregor back in the gym hitting the mitts signals a turning point back to athletic determination?
Conor smashing some pad work for the first time since surgery. Power shots! @thenotoriousmma @ufc pic.twitter.com/jFwfK2JAdq
— Ross Edmonds (@RosssEdmonds) October 31, 2021
The 70 second clip shows McGregor without anything wrapped around his recovering leg throwing shots at a punching pad. He’s not exactly flying around on the feet, but he’s working the pad with hard quick shots, looking good.
There’s still no timeline for when we might expect McGregor back in the cage. If he wants to avoid ending right back on the sidelines the second someone attacks his leg (and let’s be real: everyone is going to go for it moving forward), it might be a good idea to take the full year since the second Poirier fight in July to recover.
But then again, Conor McGregor has seemed pretty eager to return and get started with what his press team at The Mac Life are already calling ‘the greatest comeback in sports history.’
We don’t know a lot of great sports comeback stories that have multiple incidents of the athlete assaulting random people. It’s hard to imagine McGregor being in the right mindset to reclaim his spot at the top of the sport when he’s randomly attacking Italian TV personalities for no reason. But we’d love it if he got his head sorted, stayed in the gym, and pulled off a miraculous comeback.
You think it’s gonna happen, Maniacs?