John Kavanagh: Conor McGregor is doing “four times” more sparring for Floyd Mayweather

Conor McGregor‘s August 26 boxing showdown with undefeated legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. is quickly approaching, and his training for the bout is now well underway.

Unsurprisingly, McGregor’s training camp for the boxer Mayweather is quite different from his training camp for a typical MMA fight, as he’s focused solely on the sweet science, and not on the other facets of MMA.

Apparently, he’s also doing much more sparring than normal as he prepares for the undefeated pugilist.

McGregor’s head coach John Kavanagh explained this increased focus on sparring in a recent interview with The Mac Life (h/t Peter Carroll of MMAFighting.com).

“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.

“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.”

Kavanagh then gave some insight into what’s it been like to help the Irish superstar train for a boxing match.

“It’s a learning experience. You don’t get to do this too often, where you immerse yourself in one style. I read somewhere that people were saying that this would have a negative effect on Conor when he goes back to MMA; I think it’s only going to have a positive effect. When else could you shelve everything and focus on one art?

“Whatever about the other arts in MMA, Conor came from boxing and boxing was always in his heart. He was always showing me different boxing fights over the years, so now that he really gets to immerse himself in it and drag us all deep into that rabbit hole with him it is fascinating.”

Do you give Conor McGregor a chance against the great Floyd Mayweather?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 7/5/2017.