Conor McGregor is back in training and we just might get the old one that everyone fell in love with according to his striking coach Owen Roddy.
McGregor will return to action for the first time in 15 months when he meets Donald Cerrone in a welterweight matchup in the main event of UFC 246 on January 18. And Roddy, for one, is particularly excited that his fellow Irishman is back:
“Yeah – we’re back,” Roddy told MMA Fighting’s Eurobash podcast. “Conor is so busy, you can’t tie him down outside camp. And I’ve got a lot on myself, I’m running the gym and I’m doing a couple of other things. When we’re not seen constantly working together people start saying – what’s going on? I’m not doing many interviews because I’m flat out and he’s doing all of his stuff as well.
“We’re in camp now, so it’s go time. The one thing Conor has been constantly doing is working on his strength and conditioning – he’s constantly staying in shape and he’s constantly eating clean – and you can see that straight off the bat. Now it’s time for us to execute a game plan and go in and do it on the night. I’m very excited to be back working with him, and I’m very excited that he’s back fighting in the UFC.”
McGregor’s last fight was a fourth-round submission defeat to current lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. McGregor kept going on about how his camp was poor for that fight and that the focus was too defensive.
Roddy agrees in the sense that their current training camp is much more structured and less “sporadic”:
“The training camp is structured way better,” Roddy explained. “The last camp was just a bit sporadic. We didn’t know what time we were training at. Sometimes it was very late at night, sometimes it was early in the morning and nobody really knew.
“Even though we were making all of these sessions, I don’t think that’s good for you when he doesn’t even know what time he’s going to train at, just doing it off feel. For the past couple of months it’s been very regimented.”
McGregor’s stock has dropped in the eyes of many fans not only because of his inactivity but actions outside the Octagon. However, Roddy believes McGregor is hungry and motivated again and fans will start to see the old one that they all fell in love with:
“… I think when you start to see some footage of him training, he starts to do his interviews and he starts building the fight, you’re going to see the old Conor back,” Roddy added. “… I can see that already. When people see that, they’re going to say, ‘That’s the Conor we fell in love with.’ He has that hunger again. A hungry, dedicated and motivated Conor McGregor is a scary dude.”
What do you think of Roddy’s comments?
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