The UFC is pushing Conor McGregor harder than any of their other fighters in terms of publicity right now.

An in-depth sports science look at him as an athlete titled 'UFC Rising: Conor McGregor' aired on Fox Sports 1 in the US last night. It premieres in Ireland on Setanta at 9pm tonight.

McGregor visited the Centre for Sport Performance at the California State University Fullerton as part of the documentary. He was tested in terms of speed, balance and movement.

McGregor has incredible reactions, it took him just 0.3 of a second to land a jab once he had begun the movement. More impressively, his spinning kicks are nearly as quick, taking just 0.5 of a second to land and crucially they generate 38% more force.

The Dubliner broke a lab record for a device called the stabilometer which measures balance. He managed to spend 39 seconds with his weight balanced in the centre of the device, beating the previous record by pro surfer Keanu Asing by six seconds.


Finally, they measured the angular velocity through his hips. The highest score they had seen for this test before McGregor was Rory McIlroy who moves at 720 degrees per second. The featherweight hit 800 degrees per second.

Professor of Kinesiology at the university, Dr. Andy Galpin, summarised McGregor's credentials as an athlete.

All we test in our lab is elite level athletes. So what we found out today is not that Conor is elite. He's elite compared to the elites. He has exceptional balance. He's got amazing movement, he generates movement in the exact right places. He's incredibly fast and very powerful. We don't see all that in one package ever.

Picture credit: Paul Mohan / SPORTSFILE