'We learned a valuable lesson' - What losing to Nate Diaz taught Conor McGregor
Conor McGregor's coach John Kavanagh talked about McGregor's first UFC defeat when Nate Diaz submitted him at UFC 202. According to Kavanagh, the loss became a 'valuable lesson' for the future of Conor McGregor's career.
Founder and head coach of Straight Blast Gym (SBG), Kavanagh is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu master. The coach has been accompanying the former UFC double champion at SBG since the first days of Conor McGregor's victorious MMA journey.
At UFC 202, Conor McGregor had his first fight at the welterweight division. But 'The Notorious' could not find a way to knock out Diaz, who eventually caught the Irishman in a rear-naked choke.
Talking about the fight with BT Sport, coach Kavanagh remembered the closely-contested duel's details and commented that his team should consider Conor McGregor's weight class change - from lightweight to welterweight.
"We learned a valuable lesson in that fight. We learned about respecting the extra poundage, you know, for 145 lbs briefly to 55, and then all the way up to 170 lbs. And it is different fighting 145vers and fighting 170 lbs guys," coach Kavanagh examined. "And we learned about style, you know, you're going to get somebody that you've got to appreciate that you're probably going to be there for 25 minutes, so let's learn about pacing. So, a lot of great lessons. It was good to show our philosophy, that we want to either be winning or [either], we want to be learning. I think that's Conor's greatest attribute. Less than four months later, he went in against the same guy at the same weight class and showed that by making those adjustments, he was able to get a great win."
Conor McGregor has recently claimed that he would like to complete the fight trilogy with Diaz competing for the UFC lightweight championship. But first, the Irishman will have to pass through Dustin Poirier at UFC 257 on January 23.
John Kavanagh admits he and Conor McGregor went to the Nate Diaz fight with the wrong attitude
In the same interview with BT Sport, coach John Kavanagh indicated that he believed that Conor McGregor was unbeatable ahead of his UFC welterweight debut against Nate Diaz.
Coming from the featherweight title fight with Jose Aldo, Conor McGregor was being acclaimed by many as one of the best MMA fighters ever, coach Kavanagh among them.
"You know, at that stage, I've got to be honest and say [that] I was a bit caught up in the mania of it all. I just thought this man [Conor McGregor] walks on water," revealed coach Kavanagh. "And there's a part of you that acknowledges that Nate [Diaz] at that stage had really only been stopped once with a really bad head kick that he had dipped into. But beyond that, no one had even barely rocked him, and he'd had a lot of tough fights. So it flashes across your mind. Well, this guy is not easy to put away. We got to be ready for a long, tough fight. But then the other part of you is... You just look at this guy that seems to just drop everybody with a blink of his eye. And Nate, you know, he comes forward so much that there's going to be a lot of opportunities; he'll walk into that left hand. We will wash our hands we'll be back out again, back to 'Uncle Frank' in the changing rooms and a 21-year-old whiskey. And then that was not the case."
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