Watch Conor McGregor hit a spinning back kick to flying knee combo while sparring

By Ryan Harkness - September 26, 2022

While Conor McGregor may have taken his full attention off MMA for a moment to star in the upcoming Roadhouse remake alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, he’d like you to know he’s still getting some proper training in.

Conor McGregor

McGregor’s own news site The Mac Life recently posted footage of ‘The Notorious’ hard at work on his wrestling skills, coating the mats at Straight Blast Gym with sweat as he tripped, reversed, and stuffed various teammates over four and a half minutes of film.

Striking is still McGregor’s true love, though, and the clips he shared on his own Twitter featured some pretty sharp looking stand-up sparring sessions.

“Live from the s*** hot factory,” McGregor captioned one clip.

https://twitter.com/TheNotoriousMMA/status/1574179214890340353

“Turning side kick to the face followed by a jumping knee to the breadbasket,” he wrote on another.

McGregor has been the target of a lot of hate from other fighters like Henry Cejudo over past training clips where he’s looked slow or sloppy with his punches. That’s to be expected given his inability to fully train while recovering from what many would consider a career ending leg injury. The spinning back kick to flying knee combo is pretty impressive considering Conor McGregor suffered a complete break of the fibula and tibia in his left leg just fourteen months ago.

Fans have been eagerly awaiting the Irish sports star’s return to action since that fateful second loss to Dustin Poirier in July 2021, but there’s still no specific or general timeline for McGregor’s UFC return. While initial guesstimates had Conor returning by the end of 2022, that’s clearly not happening. And while he’s back to training, it could still be a while longer before we see McGregor in the octagon again.

According to research done by TSN’s Aaron Bronsteter, McGregor is the only active UFC fighter on the roster who hasn’t been tested by USADA in 2022. That implies that ‘The Notorious’ may not currently be in the anti-doping organization’s testing pool. Standard UFC and USADA policy requires a returning fighter to spend six months in the USADA testing pool before being allowed to compete again.

So until McGregor’s drug test count moves from 0 to 1, it could still be half a year before the former champ-champ is eligible to fight. In the meantime, Conor McGregor continues to train … and grow.

What do you think of the Mac’s latest sparring footage, BJPENN Nation? Let us know in the comments!


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Conor McGregor UFC