Conor McGregor, who last fought in the boxing ring against Floyd Mayweather Jr., and lost via tenth round TKO. Due to of his inactivity in Octagon has sparked controversy over whether he should be stripped of the belt or not.
Even Dana White recently said a lightweight matchup between interim champion Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov booked for April 7 would be for the “undisputed” title but he also refused to provide an update on Conor Mcgregor title situation.
Despite talk of losing a belt, Conor McGregor’s head coach John Kavanagh believes the notorious will return to fight in the UFC later in 2018 and stated that he’s “back in the gym every day.”
The SBG head coach once stated he’d like McGregor to have a trilogy fight with Diaz, but as time passed by it appears his opinion has changed. He sees a path to the fight by the end of this year but doesn’t think it should be what’s next for McGregor. He says that the winner between Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson is next in line.
“There’s a beautiful relationship between Conor [McGregor] and Nate [Diaz], in terms of there [being] a great back and forth between them outside of the cage and inside of the cage. It’s a lovely fight. His five-round rematch is still one of my favorite fights. That being said, I did assume that Nate would be as busy, or busier, than Conor. You know, Conor’s had an MMA fight and a boxing fight since. We haven’t seen Nate since so I started changing. You could see it among the fans who, I’ve always said and I still do believe, are the most important factor because they pay for the pay-per-views they want to see.”
“It was clearly becoming that [the fans] wanted to see Khabib [Nurmagomedov] or Tony [Ferguson] in there rather than Nate, probably for the same reason that Nate didn’t keep busy. So, I don’t think it would be quite right for [McGregor vs. Diaz III] to happen before the winner of Khabib/Tony because all of Conor, Khabib and Tony have kept busy. Nate hasn’t. I think Nate should get one in in the meantime. Him and [Tyron] Woodley, I hear there are rumors of that or him against a good lightweight. If the MMA gods smile, it would be a victory for [Diaz], Conor fights the winner of [Nurmagomedov/Ferguson] and then you’ve got this amazing super fight for New Year’s Eve.” — Coach John Kavanagh speaking to TheMacLife h/t to MMA NYTT.
Inactivity of Nate Diaz had put him behind the winner of Tony vs. Khabib. Coach hasn’t ruled Diaz out and actually thinks the fight could still happen later this year.
