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John Kavanagh asserted that he felt quite confident after round one of the Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier rematch at UFC 257.
In their first fight, Conor McGregor had defeated Dustin Poirier in a featherweight contest back in September 2014. Conor McGregor won that fight via first-round TKO.
Their rematch was contested at lightweight at UFC 257 on January 23, 2021, and witnessed Poirier defeat Conor McGregor via second-round TKO. Speaking to ESPN MMA’s Ariel Helwani, Conor McGregor’s head coach John Kavanagh stated:
“As for Conor getting tired, I would debate that. At the end of the round, if you’d noticed, it was his first time he didn’t actually use the stool. He stood in the corner with me. He said he just never had felt as good, with the heart-rate coming right down again. So, that was nice; first of all, the type of training he’s doing with ‘Fast’ (‘McGregor Fast’) paid off. We did the simulation rounds enough that he felt it was transferring over into competition. There wasn’t a massive difference. Sometimes, people can do many rounds in the gym, and they do one round in the octagon and they’re very tired. So, that wasn’t the case.”
“Yeah, I put the stool down and he just looked at me like, ‘what do I need that for?’ And I was like, 'yes! We’ve got this.'" Additionally, upon being asked whether he wishes McGregor has rested on the stool after round one, to help recover from the leg kicks, Kavanagh stated: “No, I took a lot of positivity from it. I was like kind of like, yes! He’s clearly not feeling even the beginning of tiredness. And I felt, at the end of round one, this is probably going to go; it is going to be a long fight – Because he landed a couple of shots. Now, I thought that it was once or twice where Dustin wobbled a little bit. The finish would come, but let’s not chase it. Let’s not get too overexcited. If we’re going to be doing three, four, five rounds, it’s nice to see at the end of round one, you don’t even have to sit down.”
Kavanagh suggested that Conor McGregor’s cardio had vastly improved. And that showed at UFC 257 since McGregor didn’t even use the stool to rest between rounds.
Kavanagh felt Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier 2 would be a kickboxing contest after round one
After round one, John Kavanagh was confident that the Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier rematch would be a predominantly kickboxing bout. Kavanagh stated:
“I was very confident at the end of round one. Like he said, he (Poirier) hit a takedown, but pretty soon he (McGregor) got back up. So, in my head, off the top, he’s probably not going to try a whole lot of more takedowns because Conor dominated the clinch aspect of it.”
“So, going into the second, I felt energy’s great, probably takedown attempts are – if not over, Conor’s very switched on for them. Even at the gym, sometimes he’ll give up a takedown at first, and then he’s like, ‘oh yeah, guy’s gonna level change on me’. And he’s very good at sprawling. So, very confident with that side of it. You know, landed some good (shots); left hand landed, he got a nice jab, a few nice jabs. So, we’re gonna start going into a nice kickboxing bout here, and Conor is one of the best in the world at that. But then those damn pesky peroneal nerve kicks.” (*H/T Sportskeeda for the transcription)
