The usual wave of “he looks terrible” followed the latest Conor McGregor weigh-in.
As ‘The Notorious’ stepped off the Las Vegas scales, he did look a little bit drawn out but he had apparently just gone through the easiest weight cut of his career.
And a large part of that came down to a certain George Lockhart, the former MMA fighter and nutritionist, who worked alongside McGregor in the build up to UFC 194.
McGregor’s head coach John Kavanagh praised the work of Lockhart, who has worked with the likes of Jon Jones, Rory MacDonald and Dustin Poirier over the years.
“We started talking to him (Lockhart) about three weeks out,” Kavanagh said on TheMMAHour. “The plan he sets out is beautiful in that it’s by the minute. There’s no ‘OK, cut out carbs and stick with protein and vegetables and off you go.’
“It was like ‘at 11:15 am, you eat four almonds’…
“I must give a shout out to Conor’s girlfriend Dee, she was incredible and would time all the meals and cook them to perfection.
“It was amazing the amount that Conor could eat, the frequency that he has eating. A lot of carbs and a lot of nice food like this. The training was a lot better because of this. We had a lot more energy.
“And the cut was… it’s never easy. He’s a big, big featherweight and it takes incredible discipline. It’s never easy but this was as easy as you could make it.
“I know in the lead-up, I did say a lot that I didn’t want to see him at 145 lbs again but I half-joked to him when he stood on the scales for the first time with about four or five hours to go, he was under weight! He was 144.8 lbs which I’ve never seen so I said ‘what about bantamweight. Can we do three weight classes?’ I won’t say what he told me to do!
“It was as easy as it could possibly be and it wasn’t as scary as normal. I learned a huge amount from George, he’s a very open guy and answers every questions you have. In the lead-up to this and in future fights, I’d like him to be part of the camp for six or eight weeks.”
