Earlier this week, leading up to the highly anticipated rematch at UFC 257 between former two-division champ, Conor McGregor (22-4 MMA 10-2 UFC), and former interim lightweight champ, Dustin Poirier (26-6 MMA, 18-5 UFC), McGregor’s head coach, John Kavanagh, sat down with The Mac Life to discuss how training camp has gone thus far.
According to Kavanagh, McGregor switched up his normal fight camp trip to Iceland by taking his team to Portugal this time around, where they apparently got strict, military style training in.
“As for the training, we had a fairly strict routine that was kept to almost a military fashion,” Kavanagh told The Mac Life. “No sessions missed, everything put in. Anything that could be done has been done.”
During the interview, McGregor’s coach spoke about how he’s looking in prepping for his rematch against Poirier, saying he’s the most timeliest and sharpest he’s ever seen him.
“He’s the most timeliest and sharpest I’ve ever seen him,” said Kavanagh. “He really has, he’s almost kept up this training camp for the year. 2020 was supposed to be his season, but it seems to have been his training season. I hesitate to use the word training camp because that’s usually six to eight weeks where as this has been 12 months really,” he added.
Finally, Kavanagh, says McGregor is keeping things fresh during this training camp by bringing in new training partners every couple of weeks for him to adapt to and keep him on his toes.
“Almost every other week we had some new people coming in to kind of keep things fresh whether it’s bringing in a new boxer, or a new grappler coming over from my gym, and that’s kind of kept everybody on their toes,” said Kavanagh.
McGregor and Poirier are set to meet again, Sat., Jan. 23, at UFC 257: McGregor vs. Poirier II, live only on Pay-Per-View. The PPV will cap off a UFC Fight Island triple-header that will hold three fight cards during a seven day span, ending with UFC 257.
