{"id":322397,"date":"2019-08-14T05:35:45","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T12:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=322397"},"modified":"2019-08-14T05:35:45","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T12:35:45","slug":"coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/","title":{"rendered":"Coach: Anthony Pettis was &#8216;the Conor before Conor was Conor&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Conor McGregor is far and away the biggest star in MMA history. Yet Duke Roufus, the coach behind former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, believes Pettis blazed a trail for McGregor.<\/p>\n<p>Roufus sees a number of similarities between the two former lightweight champs, and believes a fight between them could be in the cards if Pettis beats his rival Nate Diaz at UFC 241 this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Anthony\u2019s trying to get those big challenges on the way out the door of his career,\u201d Roufus said on Ariel Helwani&#8217;s MMA Show on Monday (transcript via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmanews.com\/quote-conor-mcgregor-anthony-pettis-are-on-collision-course\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MMA News<\/a>). \u201cAnthony was the Conor before Conor was Conor, the kid with the flashy suits, the look, the style, the pizazz, and he could fight like that, so it would be the makings of quite the super fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Duke Roufus continued, explaining why an Anthony Pettis vs. Conor McGregor fight makes sense.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When Anthony does the business Saturday, I see him and Conor McGregor being on a collision course,&#8221; the coach stated. &#8220;I think it\u2019s definitely going to get Conor\u2019s attention when Anthony beats a guy that beat him and another guy that he won by close decision \u2013 especially if Anthony does what I think he\u2019s capable of doing and stopping Nate Diaz.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the case, Roufus seems to be expecting a vintage performance from a healthy and motivated Anthony Pettis at UFC 241.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnthony Pettis is a dangerous man when he\u2019s healthy, to be able to do strength and conditioning along with his training. He\u2019s very innovative for this fight, creative, a lot of fun and just about that life, ready to do the business Saturday night.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Does a future fight between the former lightweight champions McGregor and Pettis interest you? Who do you think would win?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPENN.COM<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 8\/14\/2019. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conor McGregor is far and away the biggest star in MMA history. Yet Duke Roufus, the coach behind former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, believes Pettis blazed a trail for McGregor. Roufus sees a number of similarities between the two former lightweight champs, and believes a fight between them could be in the cards if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":306954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10206,10089,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Coach: Anthony Pettis was &#039;the Conor before Conor was Conor&#039; | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Coach Duke Roufus believes former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis blazed a trail for MMA superstar Conor McGregor.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coach: Anthony Pettis was &#039;the Conor before Conor was Conor&#039; | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Coach Duke Roufus believes former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis blazed a trail for MMA superstar Conor McGregor.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"| BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bjpenn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-14T12:35:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/Anthony-Pettis-Conor-McGregor.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"696\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"399\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Taylor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tom Taylor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tom Taylor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#\/schema\/person\/e1a3f1e5a045aeaf5b59aa1549a06a87\"},\"headline\":\"Coach: Anthony Pettis was &#8216;the Conor before Conor was Conor&#8217;\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-14T12:35:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-08-14T12:35:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/\"},\"wordCount\":316,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Anthony Pettis\",\"Conor McGregor\",\"UFC\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/#respond\"]}],\"copyrightYear\":\"2019\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/\",\"name\":\"Coach: Anthony Pettis was 'the Conor before Conor was Conor' | BJPenn.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-14T12:35:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-08-14T12:35:45+00:00\",\"description\":\"Coach Duke Roufus believes former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis blazed a trail for MMA superstar Conor McGregor.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/coach-anthony-pettis-was-the-conor-before-conor-was-conor\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"MMA News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"UFC\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":4,\"name\":\"Coach: Anthony Pettis was &#8216;the Conor before Conor was Conor&#8217;\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\",\"name\":\"| BJPenn.com\",\"description\":\"MMA &amp; 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