Conor McGregor has been told his hopes of becoming a UFC champion again will be hard if he wants to juggle competing in boxing and MMA.
McGregor has almost finished his recovery from a broken tibia that he suffered against Dustin Poirier last July. The Irishman is expected undergo a CT scan on his leg but expects he should now be able to use it comfortably in training.
The former two-weight champion said his UFC journey is only just being written and he still plans to compete in boxing. McGregor has just one professional boxing fight under his belt, having been stopped by ring legend Floyd Mayweather in 2017.
McGregor has called for a welterweight title shot against Kamaru Usman upon his return to action, but has been warned to take a warm-up fight before challenging for the belt. Former UFC welterweight Dan Hardy thinks McGregor needs to focus solely on MMA to become a champion again.
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"I think it's very difficult," Hardy told Sky Sports about McGregor's plans to balance boxing and MMA. "Especially given the fact that everybody wants to fight Conor McGregor no matter where they are in the rankings. This is what gets him into the big marquee fights without going through the ranking process, is because he's such a big draw.
"He's such a huge name for people's records, but then you go from boxing to MMA back and forth, you have to keep changing things. Energy systems, change the process of preparing has to change and you're taking some of your focus off the grappling."
McGregor was guaranteed a purse of $30million (£24m) for his fight with Mayweather, which sold 4.3million pay-per-view buys. The Irishman was tipped to take on Manny Pacquiao in his second ring venture, but the fight fizzled out after he was knocked out by Dustin Poirier last January.
Charles Oliviera, who was stripped of his UFC lightweight title last month, called out McGregor for his comeback fight. Hardy thinks fighters such as Oliveira and Islam Makhachev pose a big threat to McGregor, unless the Irishman forgets about boxing for now.
"If you've got the likes of Islam Makhachev, who is following in the footsteps of Khabib. Obviously people like Charles Oliveira, who are spending 100 per cent of their time working MMA, it puts him at a real deficit," Hardy continued, "If he wants to be a UFC champion again, it needs his entire focus."
