Watch: John Kavanagh assesses what he calls Conor McGregor's 'perfect' fight
After winning his rematch and ending his rivalry with Nate Diaz at welterweight, Conor McGregor went down a weight class to challenge Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight belt and clinched a thrilling knockout win. Already the holder of the featherweight belt, 'The Notorious' went on to become the first-ever fighter in UFC history to hold two divisional titles at the same time.
One of the people who has seen Conor McGregor's meteoric rise from cage-side is his longtime coach and friend John Kavanagh. Speaking with BT Sport about his biggest ever client, Kavanagh assessed the Eddie Alvarez title bout and said why it was a "beautiful fight" to watch.
"I agree with you in terms of it being a perfect fight. It's a beautiful fight. I think the Diaz too is special to me because of the bigger story - coming back from a loss and I just love that I can extract so many good stories from that journey to pass on to the kids in our gym, the fighters in our gym, when I am doing talks. That being said, this was the 'art' in martial arts. There's not a whole lot in this fight that you would correct if you could redo it," said John Kavanagh.
"That understanding of range there. There's no striking coach that doesn't watch this fight salivating that he can stand at a position where he knows that Eddie's punch was bending a hair on the end of his nose but that's as far as he could reach whereas when Conor threw, he was always in a position that he was punching through the target. So, beautiful, beautiful fight to watch," Kavanagh continued.
Eddie Alvarez picked Conor McGregor as his UFC 257 winner
Ahead of UFC 257, Eddie Alvarez picked his winner on 'The Bash' podcast. He went with his former rival Conor McGregor and said that The Irishman would beat Dustin Poirier just like he did last time.
He compared the two fighters' fighting styles and predicted that 'The Diamond' has little chance of coming out as the winner if the scrap hits the ground, praising Conor McGregor's grappling skills.