Love Not Hate Spark McGregor Comeback

Revenge is not on Conor McGregor’s mind per his trainer John Kavanagh in the days ahead of his return to the Octagon at UFC 246 in Las Vegas.

Speaking with The Mac Life, Kavanagh explains why he truly believes that McGregor will be on his A-game on January 18th.

“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 (Transcribed by MMA Mania). “It’s a real return to smiling on the mat, enjoying it, having fun. 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.”

When asked if this version of McGregor is as driven as the one who prepared for a rematch with Nate Diaz, Kavanagh believes it is different. ”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. 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. 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,” Kavanagh concluded. “The motivation here seems to be love, and love is stronger than revenge.”

”I think it’s going to be late,” he said of when the fight ends.

“I can see it being in the championship rounds. That’s the mindset that I have and being ready for that. Now, he could go in and spark him in seconds, but there’s a little extra weight involved so I’d think in the later rounds.”