John Kavanagh gives a detailed breakdown of Conor McGregor's loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264
Conor McGregor was denied a return to winning ways for the second time in a row against Dustin Poirier. Whether it was simply an unfortunate accident or a result of the fight is yet to be conclusively determined.
Towards the end of the first round, a wrong step back on his left foot caused Conor McGregor's leg to bend back in a gruesome manner, inevitably leading to an immediate break. The Irishman fell to the ground against the cage and shelled up as Dustin Poirier followed up with ground and pound. It seems both Poirier and referee Herb Dean didn't see the injury.
The bout was called off, and Dustin Poirier was ruled the winner by TKO via doctor's stoppage. However, 'The Diamond' is confident that the leg break did not happen on the spot but resulted from a checked kick.
A day after the fight, Conor McGregor's longtime coach John Kavanagh sat down with Laura Sanko for W2W to give his insight into the UFC 264 main event.
John Kavanagh started by saying that he thought the fight started excellently for Conor McGregor. Kavanagh said it reminded him of the 'masterclass' at UFC 205 against Eddie Alvarez at Madison Square Garden in New York. That was the fight where 'The Notorious' became the first champ-champ in UFC history.
"At the kind of two-minute mark, it was reminding me a lot of the New York, the Eddie fight, and he predicted it would be a kind of a masterclass like that. Really had started to believe that's how it was going. It was going fantastic. I thought he looked really, really good in there," John Kavanagh said.
Kavanagh also opened up on the guillotine choke Conor McGregor attempted on Dustin Poirier that looked promising but did not get the desired result. He said:
"I think about the halfway point, there was an exchange where Dustin landed a good cross and he pushed Conor back, and there was a punch and a clinch and they went to the fence, and we drilled a lot in this position. I studied Dustin a lot on the fence - his fight with [Max] Holloway for example. We knew his head would be there for the guillotine. So we drilled that a lot."
John Kavanagh explains how Conor McGregor broke his leg
Despite Conor McGregor denying any checks that caused harm to his leg, as Dustin Poirier claimed, his coach seemed to have a slightly different opinion on the matter.
John Kavanagh revealed that he was not concerned even with 30 seconds left in the first round and had made up his mind about what he would say to Conor McGregor on the stool.
However, things changed pretty soon.
"He [McGregor] throws a leg kick, he moves away, and then he threw a teep. And that was one of the techniques that we definitely wanted to employ in this fight. Obviously being a southpaw, the liver side is there, so we're looking to teep in that area..." Kavanagh said.
Kavanagh went on to explain how Conor McGregor landing the teep in the same stance as his opponent caused the kick to land on the lead hand of Dustin Poirier. According to the SBG coach, this caused a snap similar to how Anderson Silva and more recently Chris Weidman broke their legs.
"... On opposite stance, when say with [Chad] Mendes, for example, it's a bit safer because of the positioning of the elbows. But in the same stance, there's a high chance of catching that elbow... that's clearly where the fracture happened. He very aggressively threw that kick, Dustin shelled with the lead hand, and the foot wraps around the elbow... he comes in then, they both exchange crosses, they both miss with their back hands, he goes to step back on it, and that's when that horrifying fold underneath happened."
Also Read: "This was the result of cumulative damage" - Doctor breaks down Conor McGregor's injury at UFC 264
Watch the full interview below: