Owen Roddy is the striking coach for former two division UFC champion Conor McGregor, who hasn’t competed in the Octagon since UFC 205.
Although fights against former two division UFC champion Georges St. Pierre and UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov are far from complete, a confident Roddy believes there are flaws in both fighters skill set that McGregor can exploit.
“[GSP] is one of the best to ever do it. He has a tricky code to crack, most definitely. Same with Khabib, that style is [tricky], but you can come up with plans to beat them. Nobody is perfect. There are flaws in everyone’s game — there are flaws in Khabib’s game and there are flaws in GSP’s game. They both do what they do really well, but at the end of the day, for me, what Conor has over all of them is he’s so good at landing shots, he lands a shot within the first minute and 99 percent of people can’t take it. In those small gloves, he is going to catch you, he’s going to catch you on the chin or on the temple and there are very few people who can deal with that. Once that happens it doesn’t matter how good you are anywhere. Once you’re rocked everything goes out the window and you’re on autopilot. You don’t want to be fighting him on autopilot because he just sets traps and he puts people away,” Roddy said at an SBG Charlestown Q&A.
McGregor and Nurmagomedov nearly came to blows when McGregor attacked a bus full of UFC fighters a few days before UFC 223.
Roody is confident against whomever McGregor fights, mainly due to the team behind the former champion.
“We’ll find the threats and look at how to nullify them. Then we look at the flaws and see how we capitalize on them. It’s not just me, it’s a team effort: it’s John [Kavanagh], it’s Conor — Conor has a huge input on what shots he uses. He’s such a smart fighter. People think he just goes in and lands the left hand, but it’s everything before — he’s leading people into that position and he’s very good at doing that. John is very good at what he does, I’m very good at what I do. If we’re fighting wrestlers Sergey [Pikulskiy] comes in and he’s a phenomenal wrestling coach. And Dillon [Danis] will be there. It’s a phenomenal team and we have all angles covered,” says Roddy.
The former two division champion won’t be fighting until the legal issues are dealt with after the McGregor bus attack.
