“Definitely, for the rematch, I will be there with Conor getting ready.”
One of McGregor’s longest-running training partners, Gunnar Nelson, wasn’t able to help the Irishman prepare for Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 due to a knee injury.
McGregor, the former featherweight and lightweight champion, ended up losing that fight via fourth-round submission, and all hell broke loose inside the Octagon after Khabib leapt over the cage and attacked Dillon Danis in the stands.
Speaking to MMAFighting’s Peter Carroll on a recent episode of Eurobash, ‘Gunni’ expressed his disappointment in being unable to help ‘The Notorious’ prepare for his toughest opponent to date.
“That was mostly because of my knee, you know,” Nelson said of his absence from SBG Ireland’s UFC 229 training camp. “When the whole [camp] was starting, I wasn’t training, I couldn’t do much and it seemed like Conor has a pretty good team around him, as usual.”
“After the fight I was thinking, ‘Man, I should’ve been there,’ and I was saying that to my coach John [Kavanagh]. He said to me, ‘To be fair, you were hurt, you couldn’t really train.’ It would have been only the last bit of the camp that I would have been able to take part in, I guess.”
After making a full recovery and returning to the Octagon at UFC 231 with a submission win over Alex Oliveira, Nelson has promised to help McGregor prepare for the inevitable rematch against Nurmagomedov.
“Definitely, for the rematch, I will be there with Conor getting ready.”
McGregor is scheduled to meet with the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) on Jan. 31 over his involvement in the chaotic UFC 229 post-fight brawl at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena. Both he and Khabib are likely to be fined and suspended.