Conor McGregor

Conor McGregor has often been fired up leading into his UFC bouts. But, ahead of his massive fight with Khabib Nuramgomedov, the controversial star appeared to be even more ramped up than usual. Recently the star said as much. In fact, the former UFC champ has admitted that he was drinking alcohol during fight week, as he prepared to face the undefeated Nurmagomedov.

Conor McGregor

McGregor reports having “venom” inside of him

If you followed the lead-up to Conor’s October, 2019 fight with Khabib, then you know it was particularly heated and tense. While Nurmagomedov fired plenty of verbal jabs at McGregor, the latter made several controversial comments about the champ’s background and native Dagestan that ratcheted up tensions.

Well, as McGregor gets set to fight Donald Cerrone this Saturday at UFC 246, he sat down with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani. During the interview, McGregor reported that he hasn’t had a drink in several months.

In addition, while discussing the nastiness that accompanied his fight with Khabib, which McGregor lost via submission, the star said this (quotes via MMA Fighting):

“A couple months ago, three, four months ago,” McGregor said, while reporting he hasn’t had a drink in a while. “I was drinking on bleeding fight week with the last one.”

“I had this venom in me or something,” he explained. “I don’t know why. I had people holed up in a hotel from that part of the world. I would ring [them] and arrange a fight. So they’d come from the hotel down to the gym and have a full-blown fight, no head guard. A fight. I’d win.

“We’d have a war and I’d win, knock the guy out and then I’d go off and celebrate, and then I’d come back in three days.”

So, there’s a couple of things to look at here. First off, it’s interesting to hear that McGregor has stopped drinking, ahead of his Octagon return. It’s no secret that many people have questioned McGregor’s mindset in recent months, due to various incidents he’s been involved in. As a result, one could see this as further evidence he’s committed to climbing back to the top of the MMA mountain.

The comments about him drinking during fight week, and how he went about training and sparring, could also speak to how he acted leading up to the fight. That’s not exactly the type of training regiment you’d expect from a former champ.

McGregor says he learned from the experience

In addition, McGregor also clarified that he was very focused on beating Khabib, but that he’s learned from the experience.

“You learn something from everything,” McGregor said. “I learned a lot about myself through it. Don’t get me wrong, the work was great. It’s not like I was coming into the gym being lazy and half-assed. It was almost too intense and too serious and working too hard in the gym, and then not working hard enough outside it. Cause that’s a big part of it as well.

Yup. If Conor goes out and scores an impressive win this Saturday, everyone will proclaim that he’s back. If he loses, however, a lot of these comments will very likely be scrutinized further.

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