John Kavanagh unsure if he will coach Conor McGregor again
Conor McGregor is the biggest star the UFC has ever seen. He is the former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion and was the first person in UFC history to hold two belts at the same time.
By his side, the entire time is his head coach in John Kavanagh. Kavanagh is the head coach of SBG Ireland and helps train some of the best European MMA fighters. However, even though his biggest success is McGregor, speaking to The Irish Independent it isn’t certain that Kavanagh will coach McGregor again.
“Honestly? I don’t know. Will he fight again? I don’t know,” Kavanagh said. “I know him as a person and know that coming off two losses — even though one was boxing — will be hard for him. But he’s 30, two kids, and has a big whiskey deal that’s making him more money than fighting ever did.
“Would you get up in the morning to be punched in the face? I don’t think so,” Kavanagh continued. “But he’ll probably call me tomorrow and say: ‘What did you say that for? I’m fighting in March.’ So I don’t know.”
If McGregor does indeed return to the Octagon again, Kavanagh knows who he should fight next. The major question now is if he will return not when.
“He would certainly have to convince me to go again. Yeah, I love him. I love the whole journey we’ve had but I’d need a good ‘why’. It might be [Nate] Diaz again because he promised that fight. It might be a rematch with Khabib [Nurmagomedov]. But if it was just: ‘Well, they want me to fight that guy’ I think I’d say, ‘I wish you the best.’
“He has a wife and two kids now and I don’t want him taking more hits than he needs to,” Kavanagh concluded. “Khabib hit him with a punch in that fight that he has never been hit with in his career. And even Superman slows down at some stage.”
Ultimately, McGregor had an incredible run inside the UFC and Kavanagh was with him the entire way. Now, Kavanagh will need convincing to coach his biggest star.
