Conor McGregor responds to Vasyl Lomachenko’s sparring partner offer

Despite the nice gesture made by Vasyl Lomachenko, Conor McGregor declined his offer to become his sparring partner for his upcoming fight against Floyd Mayweather.

When Paulie Malignaggi left Conor McGregor’s training camp amid rising tensions between the two men, many were concerned that McGregor had made a huge mistake in handling the situation with the former boxing champion.

After all, McGregor is technically a novice in the boxing world, so help from someone like Malignaggi would have been a tremendous help throughout his preparation to face the world’s greatest boxer in Floyd Mayweather.

Fortunately, there were many others who offered their services to the McGregor camp to replace Malignaggi. Perhaps the most notable name out of the bunch that did was current WBO featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko, who is a few days removed from a seventh-round TKO victory over Miguel Marriaga in yet another dominating performance.

Since his offer, McGregor had remained mum on Lomachenko’s gesture until a few hours ago.

On Friday, McGregor held an open media workout at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada. Here, he showed off some of his skills that will likely be used in his next fight but also answered a few questions from the media.

When asked about declining Lomachenko’s help in his training, McGregor said that the champion wasn’t right for this particular camp.

“First of all, he’s 120-pounds,” said McGregor. “Second of all, he’s a southpaw. He’s pretty skilled, but he’s not applicable for this camp.”

Regardless of size and fight stance, Lomachenko would have been a significant help to McGregor during his final days of preparation before his fight on Aug. 26. Known for his fluid movement and rapid punching style, Lomachenko could have very well mimicked the style of Mayweather for McGregor.

A style like Mayweather’s isn’t the easiest to replicate, but with someone like Lomachenko around, you can get slightly close to doing just that. Even if his style is too different, the skills that Lomachenko possesses would have been a great asset to McGregor in his quest to “take over boxing”.

Next: 5 Reasons Why Conor McGregor Can Shock the World

For now, it is too early to say whether it is a mistake to turn down Lomachenko’s offer on McGregor’s part, but we have 14 days to come to that conclusion.

McGregor takes on Mayweather on Aug. 26 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in what is already being called boxing’s biggest mega-fight to date.