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15th Jun 2017

Pro boxer who has sparred with McGregor issues withering assessment of his chances

Alan Loughnane

Slim to none at all…

Los Angeles-based South African Chris Van Heerden had a high profile sparring session with UFC star Conor McGregor last year that made headlines for various reasons.

McGregor’s camp released highlights of the sparring which showed the two-weight world champion seemingly doing well against Van Heerden.

But Van Heerden made allegations that McGregor’s footage had been carefully edited to make the MMA superstar look a lot better than he actually is.

“When you have to cut and edit a video clip by putting pieces together to look good – it shows me your real character,” Van Heerden said on social media last year.

However, he later deleted his post and apologised for his outburst stating that McGregor had been doing him a favour.

But Van Heerden took to Twitter last night to voice his thoughts on how the now official fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor will go.

He laughed at suggestions of McGregor’s movement making it difficult for Mayweather to land punches on him: “People telling me Mayweather will have his hands full trying to land on McGregor -STOP IT! I respect McGregor BUT I ain’t Floyd and I landed.”

In an exclusive interview with World Boxing News last December, Van Heerden stated that he’d win if the pair fought for real.

“Conor is a great MMA fighter but boxing is the sweet science and in that particular class, I’m the professor to him,” Van Heerden

“I tagged him effortlessly during sparring, he knows it and I know it. There’s no way he takes a fight against me because he knows it’s lose-lose for him.

“Conor can’t stand with me that long, he knows it and you best believe I do too,” he added.

Main image via Twitter