Conor McGregor looks HUGE as he shows off massive muscle gain in training ahead of his UFC return fr
Conor McGregor is closing in on a return to the UFC - and he looks bigger and badder than ever.
The Irishman was the UFC’s first-ever double champion as he held the featherweight and lightweight titles at the same time, albeit briefly.
The weight limit for a featherweight is 145lbs and a lightweight is 155lbs.
Today, McGregor has said he is walking around at 190lbs after only lifting weights during his recovery from a broken leg sustained last summer against Dustin Poirier.
If recent training pictures are anything to go by, McGregor might be even bigger than that.
The Notorious is closing in on light-heavyweight shape with his increased muscle mass.
McGregor worked the pads in his hometown of Crumlin, Ireland this week and it’s the most mobile the 33-year-old has been able to be to date.
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UFC president Dana White told talkSPORT last week that they are targeting an autumn return for McGregor, providing all goes well with the doctors.
White told talkSPORT: “I’m not worried about [finding McGregor an opponent] because, first of all, Conor is not even fighting right now.
“He’s not back until the fall [autumn] – if everything goes right. So a lot of the match-ups will play out this summer and whoever wins or loses, when Conor is cleared by a doctor and ready to go, we’ll figure out who’s next.”
Who McGregor faces next is the question. Welterweight is the only reasonable step up McGregor could make and he’ll have to cut to 170lbs to do that.
White has previously said McGregor would be too small for some of the fighters at that weight, but Jorge Masvidal, a rumoured contender to face McGregor, doesn’t agree.
“I saw McGregor in Dublin. He’s not small. He looked like he walks around 195-200lbs jacked,” Masvidal tweeted.
As UFC legend Chael Sonnen points out, could McGregor realistically get back down to 155lbs now after packing on so much muscle? Certainly seems unhealthy, if not dangerous.
“So there is this picture floating around of Conor McGregor looking bigger than we have ever seen him weighing something like 190lbs," Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. "And if he does in fact weigh one hundred and ninety pounds, he should not be going down to 155.”
McGregor has previously suggested that he would get back into serious training in April and he seems to be in the early stages of that work now. How much he’ll come down in weight is up for debate, but a run at 170lbs - where McGregor has teased challenging champion Kamaru Usman - seems the most plausible.
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