Celtic Warrior meets The Notorious.
“I’m living the whatever the f**k I want life.”
So said Conor McGregor in his latest tinder-stick interview before he departs Dublin for Sin City.
McGregor has been working his rump off at Straight Blast Gym since he returned from media commitments in the United States.
UFC 196 is drawing near and so is a potentially historic victory over lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos. Were McGregor to win, he would become the UFC’s first ever two-weight world champion.
It was fitting, then, that the Dubliner received a visit from an Irish boxing legend that became a two-weight world champion in the 1990s.
Steve Collins dropped by SBG to wish McGregor the best and, while he was at it, get his son, Steve Collins Jr., to take a snap.
The Fighting Irish, Steve Collins and @TheNotoriousMMA 🍀👊 pic.twitter.com/Lnao8L06Wk
— Steve Collins Jr (@StevieCollinsJR) February 18, 2016
Collins won the WBO middleweight belt in 1994 before, a year later, he dethroned WBO supper middleweight champion Chris Eubank in Millstreet, Cork. He did have to relinquish his middleweight belt, which sets him apart from McGregor and his ambitious aims.
McGregor has an association with Collins that goes back over five years. He has regularly trained at Collins’ Celtic Warrior gym and has sparred with Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan, Stephen Ormond and Collins Jr.
Indeed, Paschal Collins, brother of Steve, maintains that McGregor would be more than capable of winning boxing world titles if he ever switched sporting codes.
