UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov is defending the gold against former two division UFC champion Conor McGregor in the main event of UFC 229.
Owen Roddy serves as McGregor’s striking coach and he believes Nurmagomedov making weight for the fight is a major concern.
“It could be a concern (Khabib making weight), yeah. It has happened before,” Roddy told Peter Carroll on the Eurobash podcast. “Don’t focus on what is out of your control, you can only focus on what you have control over. We don’t know what could happen, anything could happen.”
While Nurmagomedov never missed weight for a UFC bout, issues with weight cutting lead to a bout against former UFC Interim Lightweight Champion Tony Ferguson at UFC 209 being canceled.
Roddy also says that when McGregor competes at UFC 229, fans can expect to see a better McGregor inside of the Octagon.
“It’s familiar, it’s back to the same kind of feeling as always. He’s always cool, calm and calculated, he’s intelligent when he’s in there — knowing when to throw and when not to throw. It’s like it’s back to normal again,” Roddy said. “Conor has obviously improved with his hands, they’re a lot sharper. His wrestling, his jiu-jitsu too, he hasn’t stopped training. He hasn’t fought, but he hasn’t stopped improving over the past two years since he [last] fought in the Octagon. He’s a far better fighter, but he still has that same mentality. He’s still as sharp as ever, he’s still intelligent in there as always. I’m just excited to see him back in there.”
UFC 229 takes place on Saturday, October 6 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
