What fighting style does Conor McGregor use?

Conor McGregor is often regarded as one of the greatest UFC fighters of all time. Known for his devastating left hook, his fighting style can definitely be described as mostly striking based. However, as you would expect with any world class MMA fighter, his game is more diversified than just relying on kicks and punches.

Boxing

Without a doubt, Conor McGregor is best known for his superior boxing skills and is one of the greatest boxers to have ever fought in the UFC. This isn’t too surprising either, as before his venture into MMA, McGregor had trained boxing. It’s no secret that his left hand possesses incredible power, so why not play to your advantage?

This is exactly what McGregor did and this weapon got him the majority of his knockouts. He also uses a conventional boxing stance when fighting which is good for defense and offense when it comes to strikes. Combined with skilled footwork, he’s a nightmare to try and box and sometimes even has his hands down.

Such is his movement that punching McGregor in the head still proves difficult even with low hands. Even when he’s lost, it’s often due to other tactics which don’t involve trying to out-box McGregor. Obviously, he also had his boxing match with Floyd Mayweather that he lost – but the fact he could hang in there for a while shows just how good he is at boxing. Of course, this boxing is much better within an MMA setting.

Karate

Sometimes though, McGregor would also opt for a Karate stance which is quite an unusual fighting position. The reason for this is that Karate isn’t massively popular in MMA. Whilst it’s still practiced, it’s usually overlooked by the likes of boxing and Muay Thai where striking is concerned. Nonetheless, McGregor would often use his Karate stance when mixing it up with his regular boxing moves. This would outwit opponents and throw them off.

Importantly, it also allowed him to throw kicks which could be used very offensively. So, on the one hand – opponents would stand off McGregor out of fear of getting kicked. On the other hand, they’d also genuinely get kicked as well at times. This allowed McGregor to keep his opponents on edge, and sometimes combine these kicks with his infamous left hand. The result is if you stood with McGregor, you were often in dangerous territory. Strategically, this paired with his boxing perfectly.

Defensive wrestling

Whilst striking was never a problem, takedowns were and his ground game was a clear weakness. For example, against Nate Diaz, Dustin Poirier, and Khabib Nurmagomedov, he was taken down which eventually led to his losses. The solution for defending takedowns is defensive wrestling. This means that McGregor will sometimes engage in wrestling if needed, whether with sprawls, underhooks, or cage defense.

This is different from him actually engaging in wrestling, which he never did due to not being a wrestler. In other words, McGregor would only wrestle if it was absolutely necessary within a defensive setting. For the most part, he was happy to strike on his feet but would use wrestling to avoid takedowns. Even if he did happen to get taken down, sometimes McGregor would create wrestling scrambles to try and immediately get back to his feet as quickly as possible.

In short, it would be unfair to describe McGregor as a wrestler as his wrestling was primarily reactionary rather than proactive. Nonetheless, this defensive wrestling was a great tool by McGregor who would use it to keep himself on his feet and out of trouble.

Taekwondo

Conor McGregor was sometimes trained by John Dargan back in Ireland. Here, he would mostly practice his kicks which is wise, considering that Taekwondo specializes in kicks to the head and body. As you may have figured, these kicks would go nicely with McGregor’s Karate stance and style. As well as this, the Taekwondo kicks would often look fast and stylish. As McGregor is a showman known for his entertaining fights, sometimes he would randomly throw in spinning kicks and show off his athleticism.

In terms of substance though, these unusual kicks would also put fear into his opponent’s minds by doing something a bit unexpected. Therefore, whilst standing with McGregor, he would be attacking you with boxing, Karate, and TKD simultaneously. It’s no wonder that his striking is considered to be so good when it comes to MMA.

Other fighting influences

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

A lesser known fact about Conor McGregor is that he is a brown belt in BJJ under coach John Kavanagh. He has trained BJJ for years and often his coach when going into MMA fights would be Dillon Danis, a BJJ black belt under Marcelo Garcia. Of course, this isn’t his best skill when fighting. In fact, he’s never got a submission professionally which shows how he prefers striking rather than grappling.

However, sometimes he does use BJJ to escape bad positions. For instance, against Nate Diaz he once used an X-guard sweep to reverse the position. This showed some slick technique, although he only seems to use it as a last resort.

Wing Chun

Against Donald Cerrone, Conor McGregor displayed some unusual techniques that guided him to a quick knockout. Here, he managed to hit Cerrone in the head with his shoulders. This took place from a clinch and is an unusual move that dazed and hurt Cerrone. When the clinch was ended, McGregor quickly knocked out Cerrone but the damage was done by his elbows moments earlier.

Often, Wing Chun isn’t seen much in MMA but this was a great example of how it can be incredibly effective. It’s not known if McGregor has ever taken part in formal Wing Chun training, but these moves helped win him the fight.

Conclusion

Overall, Conor McGregor’s fighting style can be described as predominantly striking based. To be more precise, he is best known for his boxing and Karate skills but can of course mix it up when needed. For most of his career, his grappling has been used as a defensive framework, but this is probably his weakness and when he is taken down, there’s a chance he can lose.

In brief, whilst McGregor can be considered as one dimensional in some ways, it’s also fair to say that he’s so talented and has a good strategy to the point where even if you know his game plan, it’s still very tough to get much going against him – at least during the peak of his MMA career.

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