McGregor's coach doubts the Irishman's return to featherweight

McGregor (left) is a student of Kavanagh (right) at SBG Ireland. Photo: Reproduction

With a fight scheduled in the welterweight division (up to 77 kg), in the rematch against Nate diaz at UFC 202, Conor McGregor He still has no plans to defend his featherweight belt for the first time – which he won at the end of last year by knocking out José Aldo. In fact, in the opinion of McGregor's coach John Kavanagh, it is not even certain whether the Irishman will return to the 66-pound division.

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“The shortest and most direct answer is: 'I don't know.' In fact, I'm quite intrigued to see the fight between Aldo and Edgar”, said Kavanagh to the “MMA Underground” website. The duel for the interim featherweight belt, in fact, was one of the main topics discussed by the coach, who was interested in observing how the Brazilian will recover from the knockout suffered in December last year.

“I hope Aldo is completely recovered from that severe knockout. I think Mendes came back very quickly after being knocked out by Conor. People don't realize the damage it does, and it takes a long time to recover. I think Mendes fell very quickly in that fight (against Edgar) because of that. Perhaps, if he had given himself more time to recover, there could have been more of a fight against Edgar. I hope this isn't the case with Aldo, I hope we see a solid version of Aldo and an even better Edgar, and we have a different fight than the first. So yeah, let's see, after this rematch. It’s kind of like these two names and Holloway there on the cake, it’s an interesting moment”, assured the leader of SBG Ireland.

Kavanagh also praised Max Holloway, who has an impressive streak of nine wins in a row, since losing to McGregor. “I think Holloway was fantastic at UFC 199. I've always said, since Max fought Conor, that he's the best featherweight in the division. I think he's the best of them. This is just my personal opinion. And he looked really, really good against Lamas. I was actually surprised he didn't get knocked out, but Lamas is a tough guy and so the fight went to the drawing board. Holloway stood out in that fight for me,” he concluded.

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