On Saturday night, Nate Diaz shocked the world and defeated the one of the UFC’s biggest superstar Conor McGregor. With UFC 196 in the books, the landscape of mixed martial arts seems to have been changed. Today, McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh spoke for the first time since that loss.
Appearing on MMAFighting’s The MMA Hour, Kavanagh spoke about he felt the fight went, what went wrong for his pupil, as well as what lies ahead.
Both Conor and Kavanagh felt that it was an inefficient output of strikes, that cost McGregor the bout, with him putting far too much into his left hand shots, to try and get an early knockout. Despite that, Kavanagh wouldn’t change a thing about the entire process.
“Absolutely not,” Kavanagh said in response when asked if he wished the fight had never taken place. “I don’t think that’s what life is for, playing safe, and not biting off more than you can chew. If you’re not biting off more than you can chew, you need to chew harder.
“It would be a lie for me to say I have anything else other than I have the utmost respect for Conor and what he did, and regardless of the result, this is what we should be doing.
“He’s going to be remembered for a lot of things when this is all said and done. There’s going to be more fights to come, when it’s all said and done. People look back, I think he’s going to be used as an example, as to how people should hold themselves, how they should take risks, how they should take the big fights.”
Big fights, regardless of loss, lie ahead.
“There’s a few offers there,” Kavanagh said. “That’s really for Conor to decide, I’m just the guy in the background carrying his bucket. Whatever he says I’m happy to get ready for. We spoke to someone before about it, that he seems to have this weird genetics that he can look great at 170[lbs] and he can make 145. It’s just a weird body type, I’m not sure how it works. But he can, and he always looks a bit scary on the scales, no doubt about it. But then you see him the next day and he looks fine. He has that ability to compete at 145, 155 or 170 I think.
“Me personally, maybe [an] Aldo rematch, I’d like to see that again,” he said. “I just think the first one was great for us, but it was a little bit unfulfilling. I think Aldo has a fantastic set of skills, he was a great champion and I didn’t think that quite closed the chapter on that. So, see a proper fight.
“I think stylistically it would be a very nice fight to watch and a very good challenge. So that’s my personal opinion, but like I said, I’m not the decision-maker on that.”
“Or Frankie, he’s a great fighter as well,” he said. “I just…you know Frankie’s lost to Aldo and Aldo just had such an amazing run. He just got caught with that very, very hard shot and went down fast. That’s just how that fight went. But just for me, because I think I’d learn so much just watching it, to have a good back-and-forth fight, I just think[…]I’d get a year’s worth of material to coach off for the next 20 years off. So, that would be my personal preference. But, if it’s Frankie or if it’s Dos Anjos or if it’s another 170 fight, I’m happy just to be here.”
The sooner the return, the better. UFC 200, for example.
“I would push for that,” Kavanagh said. “I would like to fight, and that is what he is driven to do. He’s not the guy to go off to sit on the beach for a couple of weeks. He’s just not that way. Everything he does is a million miles an hour. His brain works fast, his body works fast. He’s not particularly hurt, no injuries from the fight, no suspension or anything like that. So, a little bit of a rest and I have a lot of ideas in my head and a lot of things I took away from that fight and I’m very excited to work on that.”
Kavanagh isn’t the only person who would be interested in such a fight. Aldo himself posted to Instagram after McGregor’s loss, calling out the Irishman to face him in a rematch for the Featherweight title.
“Conor I’ll see you at UFC 200, your Cinderella fantasy is over. Nowhere to run to now- you’re gonna have to give me my rematch, you pussy!!” Aldo said in his post.
Whether Aldo will get his rematch or not, is still up in the air, but regardless of who’s next, Kavanagh made it clear; don’t count McGregor out just yet.
“The stories not told yet, my friend,” said Kavanagh. “We will be back.”
