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John Kavanagh, the man who helped author Conor McGregor’s run to the top of the UFC, has provided an update as to how the Dubliner’s training has progressed ahead of this month’s UFC 246 main event fight with Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone in Las Vegas.

McGregor will undertake his final heavy spar of the training camp on January 1, beginning the new year exactly as he means to end it as being part of his self-described three fight ‘season’ in 2020, and according to Kavanagh, his most well-known student has never looked better.

Writing on Twitter, Kavanagh said: “Jan 1st, last heavy spar today before going to Vegas. Can honestly say this is the best i’ve seen him and i wasn’t sure that was possible to do 6 months ago. You guys are in for a real treat, i’m just glad to have a good seat!”

That is high praise indeed from Kavanagh, who has had the best seat in the house for each one of McGregor’s in-cage achievements over the years from the one-shot KO of Ivan Buchinger (which was seven years ago yesterday) to the historic title wins against Jose Aldo and Eddie Alvarez, as well as the sheer pageantry of McGregor’s boxing match with Floyd Mayweather in 2017.

McGregor has posted a series of images on social media detailing his preparation for the upcoming contest, in which the lack of need for a restrictive weight cut ahead of the welterweight fight with Cerrone appears obvious.

Elsewhere on the UFC 246 card, which takes place on January 18, Raquel Pennington and Holly Holm meet in the co-main event and there is an intriguing lightweight fight between Anthony Pettis and Carlos Diego Ferreira to open the main card.