UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor has not been seen inside the Octagon since the historic UFC 205 bout which saw him crowned lightweight champion. The first fighter to hold two titles in two weight classes at the same time fought boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. in August, and will now head back to the UFC.
That is according to George Lockhart, who acts as the nutritionist for “The Notorious”. Lockhart recently told Ariel Helwani how the Dubliner is preparing for a return to the cage:
“If I was going to put my money on him — a lot of people are like, ‘Do you think he’s going to be back?’ — yeah, 100 percent. That guy, he’s a fighter,” Lockhart said. “I think he enjoyed boxing. I think it was a nice little break. But, I mean, the guy’s a fighter. So I’m sure we’ll see him soon.”
Lockhart also discussed the new approach to weight cutting the UFC is working on:
“Man, from the UFC’s point of view, having Jeff Novitzky there — I mean, honestly, when we showed up, I was a little nervous. I was like, oh man, I’ve heard stories. And the one thing I think everybody will agree with, every fighter, everybody who’ll talk about it, is that he has the fighters’ best interests at heart,” Lockhart said.
“Everything that they do is to improve the safety of the fighters, which I love, and I think the way that they went about it is they put a couple mandates on things and it’s really opened up the eyes of fighters. Like, they go out and they get more educated on the nutrition, whereas before they were just kinda like, ‘Okay, I just stop eating, I put on sweats, and this is how we cut weight.’ But now that’s not necessarily the case. And people are starting to realize it’s a huge part of the game.”
