UFC 246 Marked The Debut Of McGregor’s ‘Left Shoulder’

Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

Conor McGregor returned to the UFC with a bang, demolishing Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in just 40 seconds. A big part of his attack that led to the victory involved a pretty interesting tactic: shoulder strikes in the clinch. McGregor managed to smash Cerrone’s face up pretty bad with a series of these shoulders, leaving “Cowboy” bloody and possibly with a broken nose. So where exactly did this come from? It’s not something we’d seen from the Irish sports star before.

”I’ve been banging people with the shoulder for a while now,” he explained to BT Sport after the fight. “I caught him off guard. I knew because he kind of froze. When I hit the first one I kind of felt like it was a good connection. Yeah, it’s a good shot of mine.”

He elaborated further during the UFC 246 post-fight press conference.

”They’ll have to say now – they already say ‘Oh he’s just got a left hand,’” McGregor said. “They’ll have to say I’ve just got a left shoulder. A left hand and a left shoulder. The so called experts of the game when they breaking down me skill set and saying I’m just a fighter with a left hand. Which is high disrespectful and uneducated and you’d be surprised that so many of the supposedly knowledgeable people be claiming it as that.”

“It’s a good shot in the clinch. You can really catch a man. I knew I caught him with the first one off guard and then I caught one or two more and when we separated the eye and the nose was busted. It’s a good shot. I’ve utilized that many a times in the gym.”

We imagine now that other fighters have seen how effective it can be, we’re likely to see its use spread through the UFC, the same way Anderson Silva’s infamous front kick became more common over the years since he used it to knock Vitor Belfort out cold. That’s bad news for anyone who doesn’t learn a defense, and good news for whatever rhinoplasty clinic in Las Vegas gets all the UFC’s business.