Michael Bisping has joined calls for Conor McGregor to abandon his longtime head coach, John Kavanagh of SBG Ireland. Kavanagh’s post-fight analysis, according to Bisping, was flawed, and not in Conor’s best interests.
Following the fight, Kavanagh said nothing in the first round worried him. This statement in and of itself worried Bisping, who said:
Bisping to McGregor’s coach: “Conor should fire you immediately”
“Just like his coach John Kavanagh said, he said ‘oh, I saw nothing that concerned me. I knew that in the second round we were getting the knockout. Nothing else in there concerned me at all.’
If that’s true, John Kavanagh, Conor should fire you immediately.”
Conor had some fine moments in the first round. He displayed flashes of his old self, adopting a low, nimble karate stance, and entering the fray with all the aggression of the McGregor of old. He even attempted a guillotine submission early on, and continued throwing aggressive kicks Poirier’s way until the round dissolved into ground-and-pound, and, of course, Conor’s gruesome leg break. The fight was declared a TKO by doctor’s stoppage. Bisping went on to address McGregor directly:
“That was very concerning. You were on your back and you were getting dominated. It was a 10-8 round, that’s concerning. You don’t want to get your ass kicked, simple as that and that was what was happening.
The leg break was unfortunate. But, as I say it gives McGregor an excuse or a reason as to why the fight ended.
If that didn’t happen, come on! The odds of him turning it around and finishing Dustin in the second round when round one is supposed to be Conor’s best round, it wasn’t good. It wasn’t a good performance.”
The fight marks McGregor’s first consecutive defeat, and his second in as many fights in 2021. Conor’s record in recent years has been abysmal, with only a win over Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone since the Mayweather fight in 2017. Some have suggested that Conor has outgrown his home team in Dublin, Ireland, but McGregor maintains steadfast loyalty to the gym where it all began for him.
After all, it was at SBG Ireland that McGregor delivered all the flash and panache that earned him two Cage Warriors titles, before repeating the feat in the UFC.
Do you think Conor McGregor needs to change his team if he is to continue fighting? Is John Kavanagh’s post-fight assessment as far off as Bisping believes? Does McGregor even have a future in MMA following this resounding defeat? Let us know in the comments.
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