Nate Jones, assistant trainer to five division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs), is not really paying any attention to the "leaked" sparring footage that shows UFC superstar Conor McGregor (21-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) being worked over by mid-tier contender Chris Van Heerden.
Mayweather vs. McGregor is scheduled to take place on August 26th from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
McGregor, while considered to be one of the best pound-for-pound MMA fighters in the world, has no experience in professional boxing.
Van Heerden, a former IBO champion, had a sparring session with McGregor several months ago.
He leaked out the footage after being angered that McGregor posted an edited version.
The footage has caused an obvious outcry from fans, who expect Mayweather - who even at 40 is levels better than Van Heerden - to obliterate McGregor.
According to Jones, they are not taking the bait. He believes there is a possibility that the sparring session was staged to give Mayweather a false sense of security - regarding what McGregor could actually do and not do in a boxing ring.
“I think I’ve seen that sparring. First of all, like I said, I looked at it, but to me it looked (like) it’s a possibility it could be staged. We don’t fall for that, we prepare for anything. Please believe me, I looked at it and I came up with my opinion that it could have been for real but it could have been staged. I don’t know. His style is a different style from Floyd. I don’t want nobody messing with Floyd. He may be more difficult than Floyd’s gonna be for him. Styles make fights. He may give him a different look inside this ring when he’s sparring him than what Floyd’s gonna give him. We don’t take none of that light. That’s a different man. That man’s name does not start with Floyd Mayweather, so we’re not worried about that. We’re gonna train hard," Jones told Submission Radio.
“I looked it and after a while I watched the whole entirety of it, but I know that it could be staged and that don’t mean anything. We’re not gonna take that lightly. That don’t mean nothing to us. I looked at it, but it don’t mean anything. We’re gonna train like never before. I don’t think Floyd looked at it cause he don’t do that. We’re not worried about that, we don’t worry about that. When you look bad, it don’t matter to us because they could be staged. He might get in the ring with somebody else and they could be staged, or it could be him. We’re just going to see what’s going to happen on August 26th when he’s lined up with the very best. We’ll see then.”