Ten days on from his successful return to the UFC Octagon, Conor McGregor has stated that he’s happy to have got through the first fight of his self-defined three fight season.

McGregor needed just forty seconds to get past ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone in the UFC 246 main event. Speaking to Billboard at the 2020 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday night (as transcribed by The Mac Life), the Irishman said he was satisfied with his work at UFC 246 and stated that he will keep working hard, going forward.

“Keep training, keep following my passion like Kobe done, you know? Stay focused, stay committed and just keep it tight, keep close with my family. Keep moving forward. Onwards and upwards we go. I’m thankful I got the first one out of the way, it went well. We keep moving on.”

While McGregor was happy with the ‘Cowboy’ fight, he also touched on the sad passing of basketball legend Kobe Bryant on Sunday.

“I feel good, I’m very happy to be here. Happy and sad, it’s a very sad day. We lost Kobe Bryant and his daughter. It’s very sad. I’m very happy to be here, but sad at the same time.

“I’ve never met Kobe but his power has transcended… I don’t know basketball too much but I feel this. I feel sad about this. He’s a family man, a humanitarian. He’s passionate about sport. It’s Sunday morning, 10am and he taking his daughter and they’re flying to the Mamba training academy to partake in the love of basketball. It’s just very sad news, I don’t know what to say.”

Obviously McGregor wasn’t the only man to be happy with his performance against ‘Cowboy’. Speaking on The Ariel Helwani Show on Monday, his striking coach Owen Roddy also praised his man. And specifically the shoulders the former UFC two division champion threw in the fight, which caused so much damage to Cerrone.

“That’s a Conor original. He’s being doing them for years. People are so shocked … He’s been doing in camp. Conor can hit you with anything. Anything that he can legally hit you with, he’ll hit you with. But it’s phenomenal. For him to do so much damage with it, I believe he fractured Cerrone’s orbital and nose and stuff, it shows what kind of power he’s generating,” Roddy stated.

“He is a genius, Conor is. When it comes to being in that Octagon, there’s very few people that can do it the way he does it. He’s just so switched on, his ability to see shots that nobody does. Not many people are thinking of cracking people with their shoulder.”

Roddy went on to say that McGregor has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, and that when he’s in a good place mentally, you’re going to see the best version of Conor.

“It’s hard to know. You’re dealing with Cerrone who’s a phenomenal fighter who has loads of tricks and plenty of weapons and stuff. But I did know that Conor going [into the fight] in a good place in his mind, confident, enjoying his training and in phenomenal shape, I knew that once he lands it’s going to be very tough for Cerrone to come back from that.

“Conor came out, he was aggressive, he was fast and to be honest Cerrone didn’t even get off the mark.”

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