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10th Feb 2016

VIDEO: Conor McGregor drills big combo to surprise southpaw Rafael Dos Anjos

Nice and flowy

Darragh Murphy

Straight right, left cross, roundhouse kick, switch stance. Straight left, right cross, roundhouse kick, switch back.

For the first time since his bout against Dustin Poirier, McGregor comes up against a southpaw when he takes on Rafael dos Anjos for the lightweight title next month.

But we don’t see the fight being southpaw vs southpaw for the duration as ‘The Notorious’ looks like he’ll be keen on switching stances throughout the UFC 196 headliner.

Bouncing between his natural southpaw stance to orthodox has been a feature of McGregor’s dazzling striking game throughout his career but we’ve not seen much of it in the UFC, due in no small part to the fact that four of his seven UFC bouts have finished in the first round.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGVdZM7sP8A

Changing stances gives fighters an entirely new range of problems as their target is constantly changing and strikes are coming from different angles.

McGregor posted this clip of him working on a stance change set-up with training partner Gunnar Nelson where he follows his roundhouse kick through so that he lands in the opposite stance.

Worth noting is the fact that his move up to lightweight looks to have done nothing in terms of slowing him down.