‘The Notorious’ says we can expect to see him fight again before the summer following his 40-second victory over Cowboy.
Conor McGregor’s spectacular 40-second knockout victory over Donald Cerrone at UFC 246 last night will be added to his illustrious resume and apparently, it won’t be long before he matches up with another opponent which he expects to happen “very, very quickly.”
ESPN’s Ariel Helwani had the privilege of interviewing Notorious after the fight in his locker room and he answered some questions that fans no doubt had about his plans for the near future.
The interview started off with Helwani asking McGregor to put into words how this victory feels after having been through what he has since the Khabib Nurmagomedov fight.
“Hard work pays. I’m no different than before I just was committed and worked hard” said McGregor”.
The Irishman was obviously very emotional after coming back and completely dominating his opponent in Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone.
Fighting is an emotional game you have no idea it’s a rollercoaster of emotions, maybe a little more this time,” McGregor referring to his ups and downs.
Helwani then brought up the fact that Mcgregor had been out for a while which led to the question of whether he missed the feeling of being back here with his team and family as well as getting to celebrate after a fight.
“Come on now, I lost in a boxing match and then I tapped in an MMA fight. I’ve never really been beat let’s be real. You’ve never seen me beat you beat a man by concussing him, putting him down.”
“I’ve been outside the game and sporadic with my commitment to it so it’s good to be back most certainly though.”
When asked if he expected the fight the start out the way it did, McGregor responded…
“He was planning to head kick me, he wanted to knock me out with a head kick so I’m happy to catch him I knew he had flaws in his own game. What a record he has to hold the most head kick knockouts so to catch him with a head kick I was very very pleased with that.”
Conor McGregor’s victory makes him the first man to get a knockout victory in three weight classes (145, 155, and 170 pounds) which Helwani brought up to the former two-division champion.
“That was something I was going for a knockout victory across three weight divisions granted it was a technical knockout (TKO) but a knockout nonetheless. Donald is a phenomenal fighter he’s not easy to put away. No one puts him away like that in 40 seconds.”
McGregor then talked about how he could have finished the fight a little earlier but that was probably due to his time away from the cage.
Then for the big question about how quickly we may expect him to come back… “very, very quickly, God willing I come out fresh here tonight so I’ll have a celebration tonight, a little celebration, spend time with the family and then I’m back to training.”
McGregor says he’ll probably be back before summer too and he’s not sure which weight class he’ll decide to compete in just yet. There’s also no opponent that he has in mind for his next fight so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Watch the full interview where Conor McGregor also answered questions we have not covered from the interview.
