Conor McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh is speaking out following his fighter’s disastrous UFC 329 comeback, which saw the Irish sports star blow his knee out
just seconds into a fight with Max Holloway.McGregor, never one to start a fight in timid fashion, ratcheted things up even more for his first bout in five years. At the sound of the opening bell, “The Notorious” decided to attack with a running switch kick. The maneuver missed, and it looked like his right knee gave out from the awkward landing
angle. McGregor attempted to keep fighting, but the knee collapsed out from under him multiple times before the referee stepped in and waved things off.
After five years of rabid anticipation for McGregor’s return, the fight lasted just over a minute.
“Devastated,” McGregor’s longtime coach John Kavanagh wrote on Facebook hours after the fight. “That opening jump switch kick was drilled daily for months, multiple times in warm up. Never an issue. Knee went when he threw the very first kick.”
“Doesn’t get any worse than this. Looking forward to seeing my family in a few days.”
While there has been some speculation that McGregor may have entered UFC 329 with a pre-existing knee injury, Conor himself has claimed that’s not true and now we have Kavanagh echoing that sentiment. His condition, they both said, was top notch coming into the T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night.
Sure, there’s some video of McGregor wobbling as he took his shoes off cageside, and perhaps some warm-up training footage where he stumbles back on the right knee. But there’s also a ton of footage of “The Notorious” backstage at UFC 329 moving around very dynamically on the soon-to-be-compromised leg, throwing kicks and jumping.
Kavanagh has been accused in the past of claiming McGregor’s camps were flawless when the truth involved skipped sessions and partying. But he’s also admitted when pre-existing injuries led to losses. A day after McGregor shattered his leg against Dustin Poirier, Kavanagh revealed that doctors had found micro-fractures in the Irish sports stars’ femur and warned him against competing.
At least in McGregor vs. Poirier 3, fans got a full five minutes of hard fighting to cling onto. UFC 329’s main event between McGregor and Holloway was over before it had a chance to begin, leaving everyone feeling robbed. To admit you came in with an injury so bad that the bout ended seconds would not be received well by some fans — specifically the ones who paid for tickets or were foolish enough to bet massive sums of money on the Mac.
