Conor McGregor’s highly anticipated return to MMA is less than two weeks away. Not only does the Irishman’s coach believe he’s “the best he’s ever been,” but he also revealed McGregor’s primary motivation: love.
During an interview with The Mac Life, McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh discussed the fighter’s training transformation.
“I think this is the best he’s ever been. And the reason I’m saying that is the consistency over the past few months,” Kavanagh said (via MMA Mania)
McGregor last fought in 2018 at UFC 229 against Khabib Nurmagomedov. After losing by submission to “The Eagle” in round four, McGregor and his coaches claimed he had a lack of consistency and structure— allegedly a stark contrast to his UFC 246 preparation.
“It’s a real return to smiling on the mat, enjoying it, having fun,” Kavanagh said. “And it’s cliche to say, but a happy fighter is a dangerous fighter. He just seems really happy with his life and his training and with the environment that we have here and competing again and having those exchanges and so on and so on. I think this is going to be the best he’s ever been.”
One of McGregor’s most infamous fights was his Nate Diaz UFC 196 bout in March 2016. In the first fight, McGregor was submitted in the second round. McGregor managed to vindicate his loss in their rematch a few months later. Coach Kavanagh compared the motivations between his Diaz rematch and his upcoming Cerrone fight.
”I think it’s even more because the Diaz fight was ‘Okay, we’re going to train hard for four months, I want to get that rematch, I shouldn’t have lost the way I lost.’ That was the motivation and the mentality,” Kavanagh said.
“This one is different because it’s not a rematch against Khabib, it’s just ‘a fight’ if you want to look at it that way,” Kavanagh added. “It’s more a return to really loving all aspects of it and trying to make the training around that, around the passion he had around getting ready for any fight, let’s say, or the Aldo fight when training was fun, experimenting with techniques and looking for new moves.
“So it’s different than the motivation being revenge,” concluded Kavanagh. “The motivation here seems to be love, and love is stronger than revenge.”
In the words of John Lennon “All you need is love,” and according to John Kavanagh, that rings true in the fight game. Do you think love will see Conor McGregor through to a UFC 246 victory? Or do you expect Donald Cerrone to crush his opponent’s MMA return?
This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 1/6/2020.