5 stylistic adjustments that Conor McGregor should make to find success upon his UFC return

#4. Conor McGregor needs to stop focusing so much on his boxing

Conor McGregor should focus less on boxing and more on his overall MMA skills

While Conor McGregor’s coffin-nail left hand has always been his most dangerous strike, the Irishman’s rise up the ladder in the UFC was based around a much more rounded skillset.

In his early days with the promotion, McGregor was renowned for his timing, movement and precision. He’d often look to set up his big punches with unorthodox strikes like spinning kicks, as well as more common shots like leg kicks.

However, largely since his excursion into the squared circle for his fight with Floyd Mayweather in 2017, ‘The Notorious’ seems to have become so focused on his boxing skills that the rest of his arsenal has suffered.

McGregor isn’t the first fighter to end up shifting his game in this way, as a similar thing happened to Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, and it didn’t really benefit him, either.

With that in mind, the Irishman would definitely be smart to re-focus his game towards more of a varied arsenal, bringing back his kicks and focusing less on power punching and more on his timing and movement.

That would make him far less predictable, and in turn, would make him a far more dangerous prospect for his potential opponents.

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#3. Conor McGregor should work on his ground game

Conor McGregor has struggled on the ground in the octagon at times

While there’s no shame in losing by submission to great grapplers like Nate Diaz and Khabib Nurmagomedov, it’s probably fair to suggest that Conor McGregor’s biggest weakness is his ground game.

‘The Notorious’ does have somewhat underrated takedown defense – he’s actually only been taken down on eleven occasions during his 14-fight UFC career – but when he has been planted on his back, he’s looked largely like a fish out of water.

In his third fight with Dustin Poirier, for instance, McGregor simply couldn’t get anything going from his back aside from a weak guillotine choke attempt. That allowed ‘The Diamond’ to openly abuse him with strikes.

Essentially, when you consider how dangerous his striking game is, it’s likely that any potential opponent of the Irishman would want to take him down. Rather than just attempt to avoid that, then, why not try to turn a weakness into strength?

Sure, it’s unlikely that ‘The Notorious’ will ever become a deadly grappler like Charles Oliveira, but simply working on his submission game overall could help him massively and could allow him to take a potential opponent by surprise.

If McGregor’s UFC comeback indeed does not happen until 2023, this would be the perfect time for him to really hone his ground game, giving him another weapon in his arsenal for when he does return.