Conor McGregor Uses Cards to Train For Floyd Mayweather Fight

Lennox Lewis and the Klitschko brothers used chess to warm-up for their big bouts, the thinking and strategy game a good way to get the brain working after weeks of physical preparation, but what on earth could Conor McGregor be using cards for as he faces the biggest challenge of his fighting career?

His eagerly-awaited August 26th boxing match with the unbeaten and ‘unbeatable’ Floyd Mayweather Jnr. will require the Irishman to be at his very best in every aspect and so he has employed ‘movement expert' Ido Portal to speed up his reflexes by throwing playing cards at him!

The pair were spotted training with the unusual technique recently, Portal posting footage on Instagram of a drill which saw the cards being thrown at McGregor in quick succession - McGregor firing off shots as they flew through the air.

Portal explained the technique and its positives:

"Using the chaotic trajectory of a flying card to keep Conor McGregor sharp, adaptive and responsive to an unexpected situation, with focus on abandoning original prediction and installing a secondary one in a fraction of a second - an ability that often makes the difference between the BEST and just GOOD."

Portal’s techniques have been maligned in the past by opponents of those who use them, his combined studies in ‘martial arts, gymnastics, different dance disciplines, acrobatics and more for his "movement culture" philosophy’.

McGregor's former MMA opponent Nate Diaz's said of his work with the Israeli movement coach:

"You’re playing touch-butt with that dork in the park with the pony tail," according to Joe.co.uk.

The 28-year old Dublin man, nicknamed ‘The Notorious’, has been fighting MMA for past decade, but his bout this summer will see him return to his teenage roots  in the boxing ring, in a fight which will earn both men $multi-million paydays. Both men are the highest earners in their respective fields at the moment, but the much-anticipated fight will likely break all pay-per-view records, figures of $500million being spoken about.

Whether his flying card technique will help him to go down in the history books as the first person to defeat Mayweather in the ring remains to be seen, but if it does you can expect to see more of the card-approach and less of the chess approach pre-fight.