Gunnar Nelson Regrets Over Not Helping Conor Mcgregor Train For Khabib Showdown: ‘I Should’ve Been There’
Former two division champion Conor Mcgregor suffered a fourth-round submission loss at the hands of undefeated Khabib Nurmagomedov in the main headliner of UFC 229 back in October. Khabib used his renowned wrestling skills to dominate Mcgregor on the floor and successfully defended the title. Now Mcgregor’s longtime training partner, a close friend, and a renowned grappler Gunnar Nelson guilt over not helping Irishman for that fight due to a knee injury.
That injury also forced Nelson to pull out of welterweight clash against Neil Magny at the UFC Liverpool.
Nelson would have been part of Irishman’s camp for Khabib Nurmagomedov fight, but injury prevented him from helping Mcgregor and took ‘Notorious’s’ loss bit personally.
Speaking to MMAFighting recently, Nelson explains the situation:
“That was mostly because of my knee, you know,” he told Peter Carroll when asked about the UFC 229 camp on a recent episode of Eurobash. “When the whole [camp] was starting, I wasn’t training, I couldn’t do much and it seemed like Conor has a pretty good team around him, as usual.”
“After the fight I was thinking, ‘Man, I should’ve been there,’ and I was saying that to my coach John [Kavanagh],” he remembered. “He said to me, ‘To be fair, you were hurt, you couldn’t really train.’ It would have been only the last bit of the camp that I would have been able to take part in, I guess.”
The Icelandic welterweight is back with full health and strength, as he recently scores a violent finish over Alex Oliveira at UFC 231.
It was clear that Khabib’s wrestling game was too much for Mcgregor to handle. Now Nelson vows to assist his longtime friend Mcgregor, should a rematch with Khabib Nurmagomedov comes to fruition.
Nelson said: “Definitely, for the rematch, I will be there with Conor getting ready.”
Do you think McGregor vs. Khabib 2 should happen? Will Nelson’s presence in training camp for rematch makes any difference?
