Conor McGregor officially starts training camp for Floyd Mayweather clash as UFC star’s trainer confirms it will go ahead

FORMER UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor has officially begun training for his hotly anticipated showdown with 49-0 boxer, Floyd Mayweather.

After releasing a video of the former two-weight UFC champion boxing a few weeks ago, coach John Kavanagh has confirmed his student has officially begun training for the biggest fight of the decade.

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According to Kavanagh, who spoke on Fox Sports late last night, the UFC superstar is now in the early stages of preparation, with his long-term coach fully believing the fight will happen in 2017.

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On the potential showdown, Kavanagh said: “In my mind it’s on.

“That’s the mentality we’re in. There’s a lot of fingers in the pie on this one.

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"There’s different promotions, different organisations, different commissions that are involved but as far as I’m concerned, I really believe it’s going to happen this year.

"That’s the mindset I have.”

Kavanagh continued: “Let the people in the suits worry about the paperwork. We’re training for it.”

'Notorious' recently told reporters that he will “shock the world” when he goes one-on-one with Mayweather.

But with his only fighting experience being in a cage rather than a ring, there are still many people doubting if McGregor could even land a punch on a defensive boxer like Mayweather.

But that doesn’t worry coach Kavanagh, who added: “Boxing is one of the ten skills you need for mixed martial arts, but now we’re only doing boxing, so we can drop wrestling, ju-jitsu and Thai boxing.

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"We’re getting ready to fight arguably one of the best defensive boxers of all time, but the training will become simplified as we only have to do boxing, so it’s a new challenge I’m excited about.”

As it stands there is still no date set for the mega-bout, but it’s presumed by many to be towards the end of this year, as McGregor awaits the birth of Notorious Jr. and will also need as much time as possible to prepare.

Mayweather, 49-0, has been retired since 2015 but recently announced he is now "officially out of retirement" to face only McGregor.