After Conor McGregor’s UFC 196 loss to Nate Diaz last month, the featherweight champ stated that his next move was to go back down to featherweight to defend his championship belt. Fast forward several weeks and the UFC was announcing McGregor vs. Diaz II for the main event of UFC 200 on July 9th.

In addition to McGregor vs. Diaz II, the UFC also announced that Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar would be fighting for the interim featherweight championship at UFC 200, leading many to question why McGregor didn’t go through with his plans to defend his featherweight championship.

McGregor’s head coach, John Kavanagh, wrote a piece for The42, in which he discussed the rematch.

Conor believes that the last fight didn’t accurately reflect the skills and ability he possesses, so he’s eager to address that. He ended up harassing UFC president Dana White and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta on a daily basis for a rematch. This is the fight that’s of most interest to him right now.

I doubt that any non-biased observer could look at the first round of that 5 March bout at the MGM Grand and not score it in Conor’s favour. For me, we saw the technical difference between the two fighters in that opening frame. The difference in the second round was down to cardio, and a cardio issue is much easier to rectify than a skill one.

Conor’s cardio wasn’t as it should have been, but there was certainly no complacency. We didn’t train any differently for the fight. I believe it was more a case of there being a strategy error i.e. trying to stop a bigger man who’s known for having a strong chin with every single punch.

At UFC 200, do you think that McGregor will be able to avenge the loss?