Conor McGregor is such a weird entity for combat sports fans. On one hand, he delivers the goods. He has entertaining lead ups to his fights, and makes the biggest fights possible happen. He creates events. He is the show. On the other hand, the guy has won four championship belts over his career, and he’s never defended a single one. He held up the featherweight division for almost a year, abandoned the belt at the behest of the UFC, then won the lightweight title nearly a year ago, only to go off and fight Floyd Mayweather.
So we got McGregor/Mayweather, but we also got multiple interim title fights in the UFC. It’s a give and take that has people divided. Now, he may make the biggest fight possible happen again while, once again, simultaneously pissing off the vast amount of UFC fighters that want a shot at his title. People like Tony Ferguson, who should be getting a title shot. And Khabib Nurmagomedov, Kevin Lee, and on and on…
McGregor’s coach, John Kavanagh, says he believes the next fight is going to be the Nate Diaz trilogy fight for the lightweight title, but it won’t happen in 2017. That means more waiting for a title defense, and even when it’s defended, it’ll be with an interim title floating out there. Oh, Conor. Never change?
Kavanagh wrote down his thoughts on the Mayweather/McGregor fight for the Irish outlet The 42, and laid out his thoughts on the future.
I’ve said for a long time that the Nate Diaz trilogy fight at lightweight is what I’d personally like to see next. That still needs to be put to bed.
Even though Conor is the champion, I know there’s an interim lightweight title fight coming up between Tony Ferguson and Kevin Lee. To be completely honest, I didn’t actually know who Kevin was until very recently.
Tony is a solid fighter but he doesn’t have the kind of appeal that would get your blood racing, particularly in the context of coming from the excitement of the Nate Diaz rematch, the historical significance of beating Eddie Alvarez at Madison Square Garden, and the novelty of facing the greatest boxer of his generation.
There it is as plain as day, and how can you disagree? McGregor needs to fight stars, belts be damned, and the Diaz trilogy fight is the biggest fight to be made in MMA right now.
Read the rest of Kavanagh’s thoughts on the last few months of Mayweather madness here.
