Conor McGregor är just nu mitt uppe i förberedelserna inför matchen mot Floyd Mayweather den 26:e augusti och hans huvudtränare, John Kavanagh, verkar nöjd med Conors utveckling. Han berättar i en intervju med TheMacLife.com att Conor sparras mer än någonsin och att det gjort underverk för hans utveckling.
Without going into too much detail, just to throw a number at you: We’re doing four times the amount of sparring for this camp than we would do for a regular MMA camp. That’s a huge amount of extra rounds. And whatever other parts you get ready for a fight, whether it’s boxing or MMA, without a doubt the most important part of that is sparring. That’s the sport.
So you can be doing movement drills and weight-lifting and running and all this different things that go with it, but No. 1 should be sparring as long as it’s sensible. To be able to do four times the amount of sparring, the progress we’re seeing – after each sparring session we do video analysis – and the progress we’re seeing from one session to the next, like everything Conor does. When Conor gets his mind to something, and he’s scarily focused and to see him apply that. … I really feel we’ve come leaps and bounds in a short time, and we’re only halfway through this camp. We’ve got another cycle to go through when we get to Vegas, and I look forward to seeing another leap forward.
Kavanagh berättar vidare att det är en fördel att endast behöva träna Conor i en kampsportsdisciplin.
It’s simpler, because there’s less skills involved as opposed to getting ready for mixed martial arts. Boxing is an element. Now, of course, for boxing in MMA we don’t get as detailed into it as boxing for boxing.
Hur många ronder Conor än sparras och hur mycket han än gör framsteg i gymmet, kommer upplevelsen under matchnatten förmodligen vara annorlunda från något han tidigare varit med om. Men Kavanagh är inte orolig att Conor ska bli överväldigad av situationen.
We’ll have done basically about 44 fight nights before fight night. So the 45th time we walk out it will seem very normal to us. It won’t be anything catching us off guard. Doing a camp with Conor now at this stage, largely because of not having financial restraints, is a joy.
Det är sex veckor kvar innan Conor (21-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) gör proffsdebut i boxning mot den obesegrade Floyd (49-0 boxning) på T-Mobile Arena i Las Vegas.
