John Kavanagh is the longtime coach of UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor, who is looking to have a super fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. later this year.
If the super fight doesn’t come to fruition, then the famed MMA coach has a short list of fighters he wants the champion to fight.
"It will sound cocky but I genuinely don’t see a massive challenge in either of them. If you look at their last couple of fights, Khabib got badly rocked by [Michael] Johnson and he really struggles to make that weight. I think a great fight for Khabib would be Gunnar Nelson (at welterweight) this summer. Khabib actually weighs more than Gunnar outside of fighting. I’ve heard he weighs 90kg. Gunni is 81kg. And Tony, he fought that guy (Lando Vannata) who just came into the UFC and got punched around for a couple of rounds and then fair play to Tony, he’s tough as nails, he took a lot of punishment and then went on to win. But you can’t do that with Conor. In round one, if you eat four or five solid shots, unless you’re Nate Diaz, you are going to be unconscious. He’s a one-off. That’s just Homer Simpson there. He’s a one-off,” Kavanagh said on The Mac Life.
McGregor hasn’t competed in any way since defeating Eddie Alvarez to win the UFC Lightweight Title at UFC 205.
The coach also is under the impression that McGregor will be competing by the summer, whether its MMA or boxing.
“Let’s say Mayweather doesn’t want to do it, for whatever reason," said Kavanagh. "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.”
While the super fight between McGregor and Mayweather Jr. has been talked about for quite some time now, no date has been set.
