In one brief meeting, Conor McGregor seriously impressed one of the most famous Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners on the planet.
Eddie Bravo, BJJ black belt who’s worked with stars such as Ronda Rousey, Chuck Liddell and the Korean Zombie, recalled a great Conor McGregor anecdote in a recent interview.
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience, Bravo revealed how one day he happened across McGregor getting in a sneaky training session in his gym in Hollywood.
“I was teaching a class one day maybe eight months ago. I was looking over at the bag and I saw someone punching the bag in the corner and I’m teaching class.I look over and I’m like, ‘Is that fucking Conor McGregor hitting the bag in my gym?'”
Bravo went over to greet McGregor, who explained that he was trying to get some light training in before doing media obligations for the UFC. The BJJ coach left him to his own devices then went back to teach his class, but it didn’t take long for the Notorious to follow him over.
“Within three minutes he shows up on the mat and says ‘Where are your best guys?’ So, I hooked him up with my best guys and he just kept wanting to go with all my best guys.”
“Nobody does that. No UFC guys do that. there’s a lot of hardcore grapplers and that’s what they do. They go from gym to gym trying to get different looks.”
“I’ve never had a famous UFC fighter ever do that. A lot of them come by and say ‘Hi’ and they stand by the cage and look in and a couple have trained but, when it came down to rolling, they didn’t want to roll.”
Bravo was pleasantly surprised with McGregor’s attitude, claiming that most UFC fighters are wary of doing sessions with unknown grapplers for fear of being made a fool of. However, that wasn’t the case for McGregor who Bravo claims wanted to take on the toughest dudes in his gym to improve his own game.
“That showed me he’s not afraid to grapple and train and work with whoever on the ground to improve his grappling. That’s huge! So from that point I thought, that’s why he’s good. He’s looking to evolve.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlxaaGs-tHQ
