Left-Hand Man

Retired MMAer Owen Roddy has been Conor McGregor’s striking coach for 10 years. He spoke to M&F about McGregor retiring, a WWE career, and being the greatest of all time.

- Jason Stahl

M&F: What was your first impression of Conor?

OWEN RODDY: When he came into the gym and onto the Irish team, we were all mainly grapplers with a bit of striking. There’s nobody that was a very powerful striker. When Conor came in I knew he had unbelievable power and very good timing, and then from very early on I knew he had something special. He was always very confident from Day 1. He hasn’t really changed in that regard. People think he puts on a persona for the TV, but he was always 100% [genuine]. He always had that belief in himself. So those two things set him up to have the potential to be one of the greats.

Conor’s been fighting for 10 years. How much longer does he have left?

I always say this: It’s not about how many years, it’s about how many times that chin has been touched. I can count on my hand how many times Conor has been hit clean on the chin. It’s very, very little. He hasn’t taken any damage realistically. He took some damage in the Diaz fights. Other than that his chin is perfect. If he keeps doing what he’s done for the past 10 or 12 years, he could fight until he’s 40.

How often does Conor spend working on strikes?

When we’re in camp it’s almost every single day, a half an hour straight just working on refining strikes. Everybody knows it’s the left hand, his uppercut. He lands his shots over and over and over and over again.

It was a Bruce Lee saying: Fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. Conor has his set shots that he lands on everybody and that’s because we spend a lot of time refining those.

Who are some other great strikers?