By Phil Ross, author of Ferocious Fitness, 8th Degree Black Belt, Former UFC Coach, Master RKC
Many of us watched, followed or at least heard of the "Fight of the Century" between Mixed Martial Artist, Dual Weight Class UFC World Champion Conor "The Notorious One" McGregor and arguably the best defensive boxer and multiple time, undefeated, undisputed World Champion Floyd "Money" Mayweather, Jr.
The highly-touted combatants engaged in months and months of hype prior to the fight. Verbally assaulting each other at every chance and creating a great deal of both interest and speculation. People who never had any interest in fighting of any sort were coming up to me and asking my opinion about what I thought would happen.
And what occurred was pretty close to my prediction, except Conor lasted a few rounds longer than I thought he would.
Did the event live up to the hype?
Conor McGregor with a 0-0 professional boxing career and not one amateur boxing match on his record stepped into the ring with a master of his craft. To McGregor’s credit, he hit Floyd 111 times and had a striking percentage of 26%. That was 20 more total strikes and a full 7% higher striking percentage than multiple time World Boxing Champion Manny Pacquiao.
That’s pretty damn impressive for a rank-amateur boxer. Floyd did what he did best, as he had done 49 times prior in his professional career—win. He won with a flawless game plan, incredible conditioning and extreme professionalism.
But could Conor have defeated all the odds and won?
My answer is "Yes". OK, I realize that it’s a fairly bold statement, but I’ll harken back to the conversation I had with our studio’s boxing coach after the fight. Two Time North American Boxing Champ Joe Rubino and I had a discussion that Conor gassed out and lost the fight. You should never lose a fight due to fatigue. You either didn’t train hard enough or you trained incorrectly.
While some may argue that Floyd knew where to rest and take his breaks during the bout—and Conor didn’t have that experience—he could have trained better and more effectively to last and have some knockout power on reserve for the later rounds.
Conor revealed that he was doing "roadwork" on an underwater treadmill. It’s a known fact that Conor has had knee and other joint issues, so participating in some meaningful roadwork, intervals,
hill sprints and the like were not a consideration.
We must also look at Conor McGregor’s fight record. Out of 24 professional fights, only two have gone to decision and only one of them was a five-round fight, his second with Nate Diaz. In round 4 of that fight, he looked very bad, but rallied in round 5 to secure the unanimous decision. All of his other fights ended via stoppage in two rounds or less.
At round 9 in his boxing match, he’d already been out there 27 minutes, 2 minutes longer than he had ever fought. Contrast that with Floyd’s going all 12 rounds in every but two matches in the past decade. Conor should have been better prepared to enter into the "uncharted waters".
How could Conor have trained better to have given himself a fighting chance to win?
Knowing that Conor might have to fight for 36 minutes—and that interval roadwork was out of the question—Conor’s fight camp should have employed some other tactics.
First of all, if he trained for a 36-minute bout, he would have to access and condition the proper energy systems. The phosphagen system is first to be depleted and is gone in round one. His training should have had him toggling between the anaerobic glycolysis and aerobic phases.
Additionally, his body should have been conditioned to enter into the
Cori Cycle, which is a phenomenon where the lactate produced enters into gluconeogenesis and is converted into glucose in the liver and pumped back into the bloodstream for energy. In an episode of
Fight Science, UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture astounded scientists with his ability to actually reduce the amount of lactic acid in his bloodstream
the longer he grappled! This was due to a training regimen that conditioned his body to respond in this fashion.
As Conor’s fight camp progressed, starting at week eight, I would have had him build to 24 rounds on the heavy bag after his sparring sessions. If a fighter is slated to go for 12 rounds, prepare for 24. I also would have had him skipping rope for at least 50 minutes in a row.
When I was competing, I used to do 32 minutes at a clip and I only fought 6 rounds at the most. Plus, I was doing my roadwork. In lieu of building his muscular endurance with interval running, I would have had him use
kettlebells. The raw strength aspect should have been addressed as one of the building blocks in his "out of fight camp" strength and conditioning.
But in a fight camp, we would employ a regimen of swings, punch swings, snatches, squats, presses, rows, cleans and get-ups. We would also mix in a fair amount of bodyweight exercises of
push-ups, pull-ups, handstands,
hanging abdominals, dips, squats, lunges and bridge work. Due to the often "unbalanced" nature of combat sports, I would employ single side work and offset work.
The single side exercises are movement conducted with one side of the body only and the offset versions have two kettlebells of different weight being used simultaneously. My focus for Conor’s kettlebell work would have been to challenge and develop his system with a combination of Ladders, Tabatas, Scrambled Eggs and the Warrior’s Challenge. Incidentally, all training sessions begin with skipping rope, generally for 500 to 1000 skips.