Myles Price is a former sparring partner of Conor McGregor’s and is currently helping Khabib Nurmagomedov prepare to fight him on October 6th at UFC 229, and he’s got some less than flattering things to say about ‘The Notorious’.
“I’ll be honest with you, I never really got on well with Conor within the gym because me and Conor sparred a lot,” Price said on the Eurobash podcast. “At the time, Conor was taking fights at lightweight.”
“I understand the hierarchy within gyms. Even here at AKA you have heated spars, but afterwards we shake each other’s hands, we talk about what we can work on and develop as training partners or as a team.”
“Basically, with Conor, he’s quite narcissistic. He’ll see you as competition. He’s not very nice to be around in the gym. If you’re giving him hard spars, he won’t see you as a friend after a while.”
Price also didn’t feel that McGregor was successful in attempting to get under the skin of Nurmagomedov at the recent UFC 229 press conference in New York City.
“Khabib was calm, he was collected and you could see that Khabib was not going to react to any of his b-llocks. He was fully prepared for it, he stayed calm, he put the microphone down when he needed to because there’s no point in fighting fire with fire with Conor. If you get emotionally invested back into him then he’s won that battle — you’re on the level he wants you to be at.
“[McGregor] kind of said a lot of things that were out of line too that took some rationality away from his persona. That will dribble into his performance on Oct. 6. He’s still a human being. At the end of the day, when we’ve seen Conor crack and underperform, it’s when he’s been emotional.”
Price was also able to confirm that Nurmagomedov’s ground game is every bit as stifling as you’d imagine it to be, while he also had good things to say about his striking too.
“It’s like having a wet blanket on you in every single session. When I jump in and do my session with Khabib, it just feels like there is no stopping him, he just keeps coming at you. When people commentate on his fights, it’s [very accurate] when they say it’s a shock when you feel what he feels like at first. I imagined what it was going to be like, but that was a whole other level of pressure. It’s calculated, it’s smart, it’s vigorous — it just keeps on coming at you over and over again.”
“His stand up has gone through the roof. He’s going to have some tricks up his sleeve on Oct. 6th, that’s all I’m going to say.”
