McGregor making improvements in training for Mayweather fight

Boxingnews24.com

By Allan Fox: Conor McGregor is improving by leaps and bounds in the training he’s doing to get ready for his pro debut in the boxing ring against Floyd Mayweather Jr. on August 26 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

McGregor’s trainer Owen Roddy likes what he’s seeing from the 29-year-old UFC star with him getting better each day. McGregor recently lost sparring partner Paulie Malignaggi, who abandoned his camp after 2 training photos leaked to the public showing him getting the worst of it in a sparring session. Malignaggi thinks he was setup by McGregor to be made to look bad.

“We’ve got another three weeks so there will be huge improvements again,” said Roddy to skysports.com about McGregor’s improvements. “Conor improves on a daily basis. The Conor of today is better than the Conor of yesterday. He gets better every day, every week.”

The good thing about fighters just starting out in boxing, they make tremendous improvements in their first weeks/months of training. After that period, the improvement slows down to trickle. McGregor has got his work cut out for him in facing someone as talented and as experienced as Mayweather.

This is not the guy that you’d like to see a novice starting his career against. McGregor has got to try ad rough Mayweather up the way that Marcos Maidana did in his first fight against him in 2014. That’s the best thing that McGregor can do. If he tries to box Mayweather by jabbing him from the outside, he’s going to get worked over by him and likely knocked out before long.

“From the start of camp to now, he has improved phenomenally and he will continue to improve over the next couple of weeks. It’s so exciting.” said Roddy in talking about McGregor’s progress in training camp.

McGregor is working on different tactics that he plans on using against Mayweather on August 26. These are certain traps that he’s going to try at various times. McGregor has already given away one of his plans for the Mayweather fight by saying he plans on roughing him up each time he goes to clinch him.

Clinching works in the boxing world because most fighters give up and wait for the referee to break them from the fighter that doing all the clinching. But with an MMA fighter, clinching doesn’t mean they stop fighting. They continue to fight and look to land shots while being held. McGregor is no different than any other well drained MMA fighter.

If Mayweather decides he wants to try and slow down the action against McGregor by holding him, he could find himself taking a lot of punishment.

McGregor’s best chance of winning the fight is by staying close to Mayweather, and forcing him to try and win the fight on the inside. McGregor cannot let the 40-year-old Mayweather get space to land his jab and his blistering fast right hands and left hooks.

McGregor will be embarrassed if he fights Mayweather from the outside because he doesn’t have the hand speed or the skills to beat him in a fight like that. McGregor will still have a tough time beating Mayweather in close, as he’ll need to take shots while coming in. Mayweather could hit Saul Canelo Alvarez and Manny Pacquiao when they tried to close the distance against him.