Former UFC lightweight champion, Conor McGregor, may be in the market for a new head coach.
It seems John Kavanagh, who runs Straight Blast Gym in Ireland, is looking to get out of the “Notorious” business now that his star pupil is coming off back-to-back losses to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Khabib Nurmagomedov, which may have caused brain damage.
Not to suggest that he’s a fair-weather coach, mind you, but Kavanagh doesn’t see a reason for McGregor to return to the Octagon now that he’s got a growing family and a whiskey deal worth several billion dollars (according to this guy).
“He would certainly have to convince me to go again,” Kavanagh told Independent.ie. “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.’”
It sounds like McGregor and Kavanagh are already putting some distance between one another, as they’ve not yet spoken since “Notorious” got choked into submission by Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 back in October.
Maybe it was ring rust, maybe he’s suffering from too much wear-and-tear.
“He has a wife and two kids now and I don’t want him taking more hits than he needs to,” Kavanagh said. “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.”
And gets caught with hard, clean shots.
Get the latest gear
