Conor McGregor’s striking coach Owen Roddy has been working with the former champ-champ for several years now. He believes that if Dustin Poirier can make it out of the early rounds with McGregor, things will get worse from there.
Over the years, Roddy has served as one of the most important figures in the McGregor camp. He has helped him prepare for numerous bouts, and hone his striking techniques to become one of the best in the world.
He is also helping Conor prepare for this weekend’s UFC 257 main event rematch with Dustin Poirier. This highly anticipated bout has the potential to be the toughest of McGregor’s career so far, despite easily winning their first outing.
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Things Will Only Get Worse For Dustin Poirier
The general consensus leading into Dustin Poirier vs Conor McGregor 2, is that the longer the fight goes, the more it favors Dustin. After all, McGregor has never finished a fight past the second round in his entire career.
However Owen Roddy does not seem to agree with that sentiment at all. Speaking in a recent interview, he explained that given the way his training has gone, McGregor may actually do more damage in the later rounds of this fight.
“I doubt it’s going to go that far, but you’ll see,” Roddy said.
“If it does go to (rounds) three, four, and five… I can’t see it going that far, but I think it will be a lot worse for Poirier if I’m being honest, because you don’t want Conor hitting you for 25 minutes, and he can set a pace, Conor.
“He is in phenomenal shape. He is in the best shape I’ve ever seen him in my life, physically and mentally. So I think it would be dangerous.
“I think Poirier would be taking a lot of dangerous blows if he managed to stay in there, but I still don’t see him staying in there.”
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Owen Roddy Wants The Khabib Rematch
Ahead of this fight, much was made of the fact that lightweight champ Khabib Nurmagomedov said that he is potentially interested in fighting the winner of one the two fights atop the UFC 257 main card, provided they do something impressive.
As much as Owen Roddy would like to see the rematch between Conor McGregor and Khabib, he is not holding his breath. Instead, he is focused on Dustin Poirier, and says that McGregor will take on whoever is next after that.
“Who knows whether that fight’s going to happen again. I know Conor definitely wants it, and we want it as a team as well,” Roddy said.
“We’ve improved so much, and Conor’s in a better place, as he was for the last camp. Yeah, we definitely want that, but who knows what happens. At the end of the day, Poirier’s this weekend, we’re going to focus on that.
“Then whoever else is next, is next and we’ll put a plan together and we’ll come in with a good gameplan for the next one and do that fight, and keep repeating that until he gets that gold back. That’s the plan.”
That being said, there were some well documented issues with McGregor leading into that fight, that left him competing at less than his best. If those issues are not present in the potential rematch, Owen Roddy thinks things will be very different.
“I think the fight would go the same way as it always does when Conor fights people. I think he would’ve knock Khabib out,” Roddy explained.
“No disrespect to Khabib, he’s a phenomenal wrestler and a phenomenal mixed martial artist. In my opinion, Conor McGregor is the best MMA fighter to ever do it, and when he’s on, nobody on planet Earth can touch him.”
It would be interesting to see Conor McGregor at his best, fighting Khabib Nurmagomedov. However, like Owen Roddy says, the first task at hand is Dustin Poirier at UFC 257.
