Search icon

MMA

14th Dec 2015

Secret weapon Ido Portal reckons Conor McGregor is very much a novice at movement

Room for improvement

Ben Kiely

The man who’s been making Conor McGregor play with sticks and fight candles reckons he should continue paying to keep him around.

Ido Portal, the movement expert who some reckon could be the secret behind Conor MCGregor’s lightning quick knockout against Jose Aldo has given his summation of the UFC featherweight champion’s movement.

Speaking on the MMA Hour, Portal claimed that the Notorious still had a lot of room for improvement in that department.

“Conor said it best himself, he’s a white belt.”

Portal admitted that McGregor was ahead of the curve in the mobility game as a UFC fighter, but what we saw at UFC 194 is only the tip of the iceberg of his potential.

“It can get much, much, much, much better. It’s unbelievable how much better it can get, but the rest of the fighting game didn’t even take their first classes. He might be a white belt, but the rest of the fight game didn’t even start to play with those ideas.”

“He’s a very intelligent and dedicated practitioner, but the stuff that we do is extremely difficult. Like, last week they show me doing some one-armed hand-stands around the house and he asked me, ‘how can I do that?, I told him, ‘You don’t need to do that, it takes too much time. It takes three years of six hours a day training to get there.’ but he still wants to get it.”

Conor will probably find a way to do it in one.