UFC superstar Conor McGregor has not competed inside the octagon since his title earning finish over Eddie Alvarez back in 2016. Since then, a series of fighters have been speculated for the Ireland native’s next match up. Now SBG Ireland striking coach Owen Roddy has come forward with a few words on two possible match ups.
Fellow former two-division champion Georges St-Pierre is rumored to be a possible target for Conor McGregor, through St-Pierre has previously claimed no interest in calling out fighters in smaller weight classes than his own.
Beyond that, the most straightforward fight for “Notorious” is seemingly a title fight against UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. Speaking to Mike Sheridan in a recent Q and A, SBG Ireland’s Owen Roddy first revealed his thoughts on a possible trilogy fight against Nate Diaz.
“I’d love to see [the Diaz] fight again — a trilogy fight would be awesome — but I always [think about] what’s getting the most attention and the Khabib fight seems to be brewing up nicely. The fans are really getting behind it.”
“I never thought the Mayweather fight was going to happen, but when the fans got behind it and then when Mayweather started talking you knew it was going to happen.”
Speaking on St-Pierre and Nurmagomedov, Roddy added:
“[GSP] is one of the best to ever do it. He has a tricky code to crack, most definitely. Same with Khabib, that style is [tricky], but you can come up with plans to beat them. Nobody is perfect. There are flaws in everyone’s game — there are flaws in Khabib’s game and there are flaws in GSP’s game.
“They both do what they do really well, but at the end of the day, for me, what Conor has over all of them is he’s so good at landing shots, he lands a shot within the first minute and 99 percent of people can’t take it. In those small gloves, he is going to catch you, he’s going to catch you on the chin or on the temple and there are very few people who can deal with that.
“Once that happens it doesn’t matter how good you are anywhere. Once you’re rocked everything goes out the window and you’re on autopilot. You don’t want to be fighting him on autopilot because he just sets traps and he puts people away.”
“Every fight is exciting, it’s like, ‘How do we approach this guy? What’s he going to come up with? What threats does he have and where are his flaws?’”
“We’ll find the threats and look at how to nullify them. Then we look at the flaws and see how we capitalize on them. It’s not just me, it’s a team effort: it’s John [Kavanagh], it’s Conor — Conor has a huge input on what shots he uses. He’s such a smart fighter. People think he just goes in and lands the left hand, but it’s everything before — he’s leading people into that position and he’s very good at doing that.
“John is very good at what he does, I’m very good at what I do. If we’re fighting wrestlers Sergey [Pikulskiy] comes in and he’s a phenomenal wrestling coach. And Dillon [Danis] will be there. It’s a phenomenal team and we have all angles covered.”
