Amir Khan insists Conor McGregor’s ‘hunger has died’.
The former two-weight UFC champion is expected to return to the Octagon in 2024 after nearly three years on the sidelines.
Khan thinks McGregor is in trouble if he returns to MMACredit: Instagram – Amir Khan
In his last outing, all the way back in July 2021, he fell to a second consecutive defeat at the hands of Dustin Poirier and broke his leg at the end of the opening stanza.
During his time away from the sport McGregor has been living life to its fullest.
From partying with Chris Brown to starring in the remake of Road House alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, ‘Notorious’ has certainly been enjoying himself.
However, Khan believes the Irishman has taken his eye off the ball and anticipates he will get seriously hurt if he chooses to jump back in the cage with a hungry contender.
“One hundred per cent McGregor’s hunger has died, you can see it,” Khan told Gambling Zone, per The Sun.
“He might do a training session but then he’s more chilling, galavanting and enjoying himself than he is killing himself in the gym.
“That focus and fire in his eyes is gone. But he’s probably in the same boat as me, people only see him as a fighter and he wants to fight for the people and put on a good show.
“But that’s when you get hurt or have a bad performance, that’s when you realise, ‘this isn’t for me anymore’.”
McGregor has been living it up outside of the OctagonCredit: @thenotoriousmma – instagram
McGregor is the highest-paid MMA fighter of all time having pocketed over £200million during his glittering career.
Khan, who has also had his fair share of big paydays, is well aware of how money can kill motivation.
He added: “Fighters that make big money like Conor McGregor and myself, we start thinking towards the end of our careers, ‘we don’t need this anymore’ and we start to question whether we still want to be in those hard training camps, do we still want to be punched?
“McGregor has got everything in the palm of his hands; the yacht, the house, his wife.
“He’s financially strong like myself, so you think, ‘do I need this’? Shall I stay in bed and chill or get punched in the head?
“I was a totally different fighter in my twenties than in my thirties because I was happy and financially strong in my thirties, I made enough money and the hunger died.”
Michael Chandler is expected to be the man standing across from McGregor when he makes his long-awaited comeback.
McGregor recently took to social media to claim that he would fight Chandler at middleweight on June 29.