For those of you sick of this ridiculous business regarding Conor McGregor boxing Floyd Mayweather, take heart: Conor’s head coach John Kavanagh is saying the UFC lightweight champion is ready to jump right back into UFC competition should the Mayweather fight fail to come together.
“What I see happening this year is the Mayweather fight, maybe the end of the summer or something like that”, Kavanagh said, as reported by McGregor’s own news site TheMacLife. “But let’s say Mayweather doesn’t want to do it, for whatever reason. Then I could see us fighting in MMA by the end of the summer, (for) the lightweight belt.”
“One thing you’ve got to understand about Conor — and this might rattle your bones — is his motivation is not money when it comes to fighting. Right now, even with his ridiculous spending habits, he wouldn’t be able to spend his money by the time he retired. It’s not money that’s getting him up in the morning. It’s the competition. It’s facing someone he genuinely feels is a threat.”
But Kavanagh added that Khabib Nurmagomedov really screwed things up at lightweight when he dropped out of his title eliminator bout with Tony Ferguson at UFC 209, leaving the division without a clear cut #1 contender with enough hype to excite McGregor. But if things aren’t clear cut and interesting enough at 155, there’s always the 170 pound belt held by Tyron Woodley.
“I’d fancy him in there with (current champion Tyron) Woodley,” Kavanaugh said.”He’s just another wrestler with an overhand right, and that’s the type Conor grew up knocking out. So I wouldn’t see a massive challenge in that.”
It sounds like McGregor’s coach is just as confident about his pupil’s skills as McGregor is himself. But hey, the easier both men think the opposition in the UFC is, the more likely they are to sign on the dotted line for another MMA fight if penny pinching negotiations with Floyd Mayweather drag on. So there’s still a chance we could see Conor McGregor back in the Octagon sometime this summer.
