THE CONOR McGREGOR fanclub has got itself another new member.
‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed has paid his subscription fee, admitting that the UFC star has changed his opinion of MMA. McGregor has often been compared to Naseem, a former World Champion boxer who retired in 2002.
Naseem was a guest on the Boxing News Magazine podcast and sang the praises of the 26-year-old Dubliner.
He said: “I was in Sheffield last week and my brother said to me, have you seen this guy in the UFC? And I said to my brother, I don’t watch UFC. I don’t like UFC. He said to me, just watch this fighter with me today, and let’s see if you don’t like UFC.
“Well he showed me this Irish guy, from Dublin, called Conor McGregor. And I swear to God, this guy is a breath of fresh air. This guy, in my eyes, is the most entertaining man in the whole of any combat sport there is today.
“He’s blazed out the whole of boxing. I mean, smashed it out of the water. This is a UFC fighter. He is entertaining. He’s a very confident guy, I like the way he fights.
“After I watched him, I read up on him a little bit and the guy used to be a National Amateur [Boxing] champion. And obviously he’s grown up watching me. Some of his stuff that he does reminds me of when I was younger, what I used to do and how confident I used to be.”
When he takes on Jose Aldo later this year, McGregor will hope to have better luck competing in a world title bout in Las Vegas than Naseem did.
The English former boxer, who turned 40 last year, fought in Vegas just once during his career, suffering his only professional loss at the hands of Marco Antonio Barrera at the MGM Grand in 2001.
H/T: SevereMMA.com
