“When has he ever not been gracious at the end?”
Conor McGregor is getting a lot of flak for his post-fight behavior at UFC 264. A new video of him spewing out death threats towards Dustin Poirier and his wife Jolie has made the rounds, and it’s further putting him in a bad light.
But according to his head coach John Kavanagh, it was because “The Notorious” was at the peak of emotions at the time. And without naming names, he blamed long-time UFC analyst Joe Rogan for conducting that post-fight interview.
“His foot is literally hanging down. It’s a clean fracture on the fibula and tibia. It went straight through. It’s both hanging down,” Kavanagh told UFC correspondent Laura Sanko in a recent Wimp 2 Warrior Instagram Q&A.
“And you can only imagine the rush of hormones and what’s going to be going through your body at that moment. The pain, it was on fire. And someone sits down and sticks a microphone onto your face. ‘How are you feeling right now?’ Guys, come on.
“When has he ever not been gracious at the end? Let’s get backstage, let’s get a proper assessment by a doctor. Let’s get an x-ray. So I was… let’s say I was pretty miffed at that idea of shoving a microphone at someone’s face at that stage. Let’s gather ourselves.”
For many, UFC 264 and its ugly conclusion may have marked the end of Conor McGregor’s stellar career. But as Kavanagh continues to see his fighter’s passion for the sport and competition, he is expecting a few more years for the former champ-champ.
“He truly loves this. And it’s hard to imagine him not wanting to come back, not wanting to do this again,” Kavanagh said of McGregor. “Because we really just got this fantastic rhythm, he’s 33 in a couple of days’ time, which I believe is sort of a physical… you’re peaking at that area.
“It’s kind of where strength is meeting conditioning and mental and physical and spiritual maturity. Everything’s coming together.
“I think we’ve got a couple of years of this ahead of us. So if that future — which we don’t talk about but you somehow had me talking about — is gonna be that, well, then great. We’ll do that. But 24-hour goals for today.”
McGregor expects to be on crutches for the next six weeks before he starts building himself back up to correct Poirier’s “illegitimate win.”