Sean O’Malley has a lot of love for Conor McGregor, and even hopes to emulate the Irish sports star’s rise to fame in 2024. But he’s unsure whether “The Notorious” will be able to pull off the biggest comeback in MMA history when he faces Michael Chandler later this year.
McGregor recently announced that he’d face Chandler on the UFC’s big International Fight Week pay-per-view in June. It’ll be the first time since Conor has competed in three years due to injury, and “Suga” wonders whether the multi-millionaire can still grind like the McGregor of 2014-2015.
“I’m a huge fan of Conor and I would be very excited to watch him come back and compete,” O’Malley said in an interview with ESPN. “He’s looking good, he’s posting little videos here and there training, looks like he’s grappling a lot. So he’s very skilled, but what sets people apart is obviously the mindset — if he can get back on that.”
“You’re not going to be as good as you were if you were training and grinding for years, and then you’re living on a yacht and doing these things. You just aren’t going to be the same guy. So it’s just what you do for those three months. For three months if he’s dialed in and laser-focused on the task at hand, I think he’ll show up and put on a performance.”
There’s a lot of unknowns when it comes to McGregor’s comeback. How committed is he to training and living a clean lifestyle — the lifestyle he needs to live to hang with top UFC opponents? We know Chandler is living that life. What we see on McGregor’s social media accounts ain’t it.
Will the extra muscle Mac put on during his hiatus from the sport (and drug testing pool) help him or throw off his timing? Will he be the one to come back from an injury that ended the competitive careers of Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman?
As O’Malley said, if McGregor puts in the work for three months, he’ll be able to put on a show. But he could very well come up short against the very tough Michael Chandler. We’ll have to wait until June 29th to see how it shakes out. As for “Suga” Sean, he defends his bantamweight title at UFC 299 on March 9th against Marlon “Chito” Vera.
