Longtime SBG coach John Kavanagh apparently hasn’t spoken to his star pupil Conor McGregor since UFC 229.
The former two-division champ was submitted with relative ease by Khabib Nurmagomedov in the fourth round of their anticipated title bout. Since then, McGregor has requested an immediate rematch. But that prospect will have to wait right now due to several reasons.
Both McGregor and Khabib are facing sanctions from the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) for their part in the post-fight brawl at UFC 229. McGregor has also been focused on selling his Proper Twelve whiskey. As for the fight, McGregor did provide his own lengthy breakdown of what went wrong. In it, he did state he could have ‘listened to himself more.’ That lead to speculation he doubted the strategy of his trainers.
Kavanagh was recently asked if there was some discord during an interview on True Geordie Clips (via MMA Mania), and his answer was a bit cryptic. He said he didn’t know if McGregor was unhappy with his coaching. In fact, he hasn’t seen nor heard from McGregor since UFC 229:
“The honest answer is I don’t know. I haven’t actually spoken to him, I haven’t really seen him since the fight. I’ve hit the ground running, got so much on. He’s doing his whiskey tours of the world. It’s sold out, it’s crazy.
“I don’t know, you’re going to ask me to get into the mind of another human, and I just can’t do it. He said what he said and you’d have to get him as your next guest, fingers crossed, and ask him.”
Disagreement?
One could certainly read into this more than necessary. It seems there may be some discord on how the fight played out. Indeed Kavanagh touched on that lightly by saying there were some ‘slight’ disagreements at how he approached Khabib early:
“He did wanna feel the clinch early. Maybe some slight disagreements on that end, but he did want to feel that end. He was just like, ‘Come on, go for your takedown, let’s feel the clinch.’
But it was just, it’s a competitiveness. The guy’s great at kicking, let’s exchange kicks, let’s see what that feels like. Whatever area you’re great at, alright come on, show me.”
Kavanagh was then asked if he thought that was McGregor’s ego coming into play. He responded by saying it was more curiosity:
“I think it’s almost like it’s interesting to him. Everybody talks about it, let’s do it. I don’t know if it’s ego, I don’t know what it is, I think it’s curiosity.”
Ego aside, that obviously wasn’t the best strategy against the top grappler in MMA right now. Regardless, McGregor and Kavanagh are doing their own things and their paths haven’t crossed since UFC 229.
There’s a lot of red tape to bypass before McGregor can truly return to the Octagon. But there’s also little question that he will at some point when the NSAC issues are behind him. We’ll see if he works out a different strategy with his coach when he does.
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