Georges St-Pierre hopes Conor McGregor is doing the right things to prepare for his octagon return against Max Holloway at UFC 329.
St-Pierre is eager to see how fellow former two-division UFC champion McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC) will look after a five-year layoff from MMA that followed a serious leg injury in his July 2021 trilogy bout with Dustin Poirier.
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McGregor gets a stern test in his comeback in former UFC and BMF champion Holloway (27-9 MMA, 23-9 UFC), whom he meets in a five-round welterweight bout on July 11 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (Paramount+). UFC Hall of Famer St-Pierre can relate to McGregor after taking a hiatus from the sport from 2013 to 2017, and he said ensuring top condition after so much time away is truly not easy.
“You need to make sure when you prepare yourself that you recreate that environment and that level of discomfort that you will face,” St-Pierre told MMA Junkie. “If you stay in your comfort zone during your training camp, it’s not good. You need to make sure you bring guys that make you uncomfortable. I’m not only talking about skills and sparring. Sometimes it’s good to bring guys that you’ve never trained with, and you have the butterflies, and you don’t know how they move. ‘They’re dirty, and they’re going to try to hurt me.’ It’s important.”
Although there are far more winnable matchups for McGregor than Holloway at this stage, St-Pierre said he respects “The Notorious” for accepting such a challenge.
That said, St-Pierre admits it would hurt him to see McGregor look like a shell of himself inside the octagon. He hopes the best for him and said the Irishman better be taking every element of his preparation seriously.
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“He comes back for big things, and he doesn’t come back for small things,” St-Pierre said. “It’s appropriate. Of course, if I was in Conor’s camp I would say, ‘Strap in because it’s a hell of a fight.’ But he can do it. It’s going to be interesting.
“It would break my heart to see him come back and not be as good as he was or close to what he was. That’s heartbreaking.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC 329: Georges St-Pierre fears ‘heartbreaking’ Conor McGregor return
