Is Conor McGregor working with the best training partners that will challenge him en route to his UFC 303 fight? Sean O’Malley’s head coach has questions about that.
Sean O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch has analyzed Conor McGregor’s UFC 303 training footage. and while he likes what he sees, he does have some concerns about the quality of sparring partners “The Notorious” is working with.
McGregor is set to face Michael Chander on June 29th … or at least that’s the original plan. Everything feels up in the air since the UFC canceled a Dublin press conference hours before it was set to start. Rumors of a McGregor injury are swirling. Reports of the UFC sending out ‘feelers’ for a replacement are kicking into high gear again.
And amidst all this, McGregor released a batch of training videos reassuring fans he was working hard in preparation for the bout. So how does the Irish sports star look? O’Malley coach Welch broke down the footage in a new YouTube video.
“Still sharpening up his left hand, he’s looking in shape,” Welch said. “It doesn’t look like that left leg’s bothering him at all. I mean, you can tell it’s a little bit atrophied still. It’s definitely a little smaller. Looks like they’re timing the left knee when Michael Chandler’s stepping in for a right hand. That’s gonna be a good option.”
“I don’t know these guys he’s sparring. You can’t see who they are with headgear. I mean, they’re probably not going to be near the athlete Michael Chandler is. And it looks like in some of these sparring videos that some of these guys are a little bit scared of him. A little bit scared, and a little bit intimidated by him, and he’s stalking them down, hunting them down.”
“Sometimes that can be good,” he added. “When you’re fighting and you’re the man in the room and you’re tuning everybody up, everyone’s scared of you, then you get in this cage with this high level of confidence, and go out there and piece them up.”
“Compare that to training with really good guys all the time, and you’re getting beat up all the time, and you’re maybe winning some rounds, maybe not winning some rounds. They’re taking you down. They’re submitting you. Then you go in that cage not near as confident. There’s some pluses and minuses to both.”
The old adage is iron sharpens iron, so the better your training partners the better you’ll be when you step into the cage. McGregor’s training with some top guys in Ireland, but there’s also a lot of bodies for him to work his timing and Chandler-specific combos on. Everything we’re seeing is undoubtedly carefully curated as well.
Hopefully McGregor makes it into the cage at UFC 303 to show us the finished product.