Coach John Kavanagh is leading the charge as UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor’s head coach for his training camp for his bout against Floyd Mayweather.
According to Coach Kavanagh, the UFC Lightweight Champion is sparring far more than he has for any previous fights.
“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,” Kavanagh said to The Mac Life. “That’s a huge amount of extra rounds. Whatever other parts you get ready for a fight whether it’s boxing or MMA, without 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 of these different things that go with it but number one should be sparring, as long as it’s sensible.”
Those extra sparring rounds can prove to be valuable for McGregor, who enters the fight with no professional boxing experience to speak of.
Kavanagh also stated that there is less skill involved in boxing than there is with MMA.
“I get in trouble when I say this, but I’m saying it’s simpler because there are just less skills involved as opposed to getting ready for mixed martial arts, boxing is just one element (of mixed martial arts). When you’re boxing for MMA you don’t go into the same detail as you do when you’re boxing for boxing sake. However, it is just one in a myriad of skills that you need for MMA. It’s simpler, but then on the flip side it’s interesting because you get to really delve deep into what boxing is,” says Kavanagh.
Conor McGregor versus Floyd Mayweather takes place on Saturday, August 26 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
