Coach Offers His Prediction For Conor McGregor’s Next Opponent
When UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor returns to the UFC, he will have a lot of options for his next bout as many fighters have been calling him out. McGregor was last seen in the Octagon back in November at UFC 205 against Eddie Alvarez, which saw McGregor win the fight by TKO. He chose to take some time off due to his girlfriend being pregnant with their first child as well as to enter talks with retired boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather for a potential super fight.
McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh believes the fight with Mayweather will come together and then when he returns to the UFC; he’ll make his first title defense as lightweight champion. Kavanagh seems to agree with UFC President Dana White already saying that he would like to see McGregor face the winner of the co-main event from this weekend’s UFC 209 between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson.
“I’ve said it before – the Nate [Diaz] rematch interests me a lot because it’s 1-1 and [because of] how the styles match up,” Kavanagh told Submission Radio this week. “Almost on a par with that, not much difference will be the winner of Khabib and Ferguson this weekend. I think Khabib does it, so I think Khabib will be the winner. So Khabib will be the match-up out of that. Below that would be GSP [Georges St-Pierre]. Purely because GSP was an incredible fighter, [I’m a] big fan of him, I’ve learnt a lot from watching his fights, but it’s a long time since he’s fought and the game changes very, very quickly and I think Khabib is sort of like a better version of GSP. Although we don’t know, it’s hard to tell how GSP and Khabib would match up. But yeah, MMA-wise, Nate or almost on a par winner of Khabib-Ferguson.”
With the interim title is up for grabs in the fight and whoever walks out with the belt will more than likely be challenging McGregor whenever he returns to the UFC.
“I find it hard to imagine not seeing that. You know, even with Conor getting the — if and when the Mayweather fight was to happen and he got that out of the way — I know, like myself, I do believe his true love is free combat sports and there is no freer combat sport than mixed martial arts, and he is the UFC lightweight champion,” Kavanagh said. “He did only win it a couple of months ago, so he is the lightweight champion. So I can’t imagine him not fighting the winner of that (Nurmagomedov/Ferguson). We gotta see what happens with the Mayweather talks and all that, but yeah I do believe that will happen, yes.”
Although boxing may not be normal for McGregor, Kavanagh likes his chances in a possible matchup with one of the greatest boxers of all-time. He applauds the creative matchmaking that might pit the biggest superstar in mixed martial arts history against one of the greatest boxers of all-time, which will no doubt do great business for both fighters.
“I would love to see the challenge for Conor to test himself in that area,” Kavanagh said about the Mayweather fight. “I’ll be honest, like right from the beginning I’ve been used to hearing ‘you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can’t. You won’t train somebody up to a UFC-level from Ireland. You don’t have wrestling or grappling. It’s impossible to fight for a world title. It’s impossible to hold two world titles. It’s impossible to have a thousand-square meter gym dedicated to MMA.’ So I’ve just heard those things my whole life and yet here I am, I’m talking to you and I have a best-selling book and I’m coming to Australia to talk about that and I’ve got a world-renowned gym. So we’re kind of used to being told what we can’t do, but we don’t pay too much attention to it, we just get on and make things happen.”
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