Conor McGregor is currently on vacation in Europe, cruising around the mediterranean sea on his new Lamborghini Yacht. He recently announced his return to the UFC, calling it: “The biggest comeback in sporting history.”
As he was on the Spanish island of Mallorca, McGregor decided to get himself a training session and showed up one morning to the No Gi BJJ class at Mallorca BJJ. The students were in shock when they saw the Irishman show up and training with them.
Mallorca BJJ head coach, Joe Notebaert, a respected American black belt talked to BJJEE about the experience:
“We were getting ready to start our No Gi BJJ class when all of a sudden, Conor walked in. He was a very nice guy, humble and did the class like everyone else. We did the warm up and then went straight to rolling. ”
“Conor has very good Jiu-Jitsu. Very technical and very strong. In my opinion, he is at black belt level.”
“My guys and myself of course were careful not to injure him.”
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The moment Conor arrived:
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McGregor, currently a BJJ brown belt, has competed multiple times Gi and No Gi in international BJJ competitions (IBJJF Europeans, London No Gi Open) and has had decent results.
Many MMA fans have been critical of Conor’s ground game since we rarely see it and he has been submitted 4 times already in MMA.
In the past, he has even trained with Eddie Bravo.
Eddie Bravo talks about about Conor McGregor’s ground game and grappling is his willingness to learn and evolve.
“It’s a good sign, and I saw it first hand, he has the mentality to be really really good at jiujitsu,” Bravo said about McGregor.
“I’m teaching class one day, and someone was punching a bag in the corner. I look over, and said ‘is that Conor McGregor hitting the bag in my gym?”
“So I go back to class, and within 3 minutes I see him on the mats and said ‘where are your best guys?’ I hooked him up with my best guys, and he just kept wanting to go with my best guys,” he continued. “Nobody does that! No UFC guys do that. A lot of them come and say hi, and some of them train, but when it comes to rolling, they didn’t want to roll.”
“Famous UFC fighters don’t generally train — and I generally understand where they come from. They train in some gym where they don’t know guys, and there will be cameras out, and maybe they’ll go ‘I just tapped out this guy from the UFC!’ Guys from the UFC, they don’t want that shit.”
“That showed me that he has the mentality, that he’s not afraid to grapple and train with whoever to improve his grappling. That’s huge! From that point on, I’m like ‘that’s why he’s good!’ He’s looking to evolve.”
McGregor has been quote as saying the following about his Gi bjj training:
“I will usually work towards the temple, but when training in the Gi, it is fun to work towards the limbs or the neck instead.”
BJJ world champion & UFC welterweight contender Gilbert ‘Durinho’ Burns recently commented on McGregor’s Bjj level. For Durinho, McGregor’s BJJ is underrated:
“He’s good. People think he’s very bad, but he’s very good. People don’t remember he swept Nate Diaz in their first fight,”
“I think he’s very underrated. People say ‘All you have to do is take him down.’ First of all, when the guy controls the distance like Conor, it’s not easy to take the guy down.
“Another thing that people don’t realize, is those guys that kick a lot, they develop a lot of power in their hips. So those hips are very flexible and very strong.
“It’s that type of flexibility and strength that is the same one that you use to defend the takedowns.”
“The point is, Conor’s jiu-jitsu is not bad. People underestimate that, but he is a good grappler the way I see,”
“For sure, he’s not a grappler. It’s not his natural thing, but for sure he’s put a lot of focus on that.”
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