Eddie Alvarez was, it’s fair to say, never in the fight against Conor McGregor.
From the opening bell it appeared that the defending UFC lightweight champion was out of his depth against the challenger for his title.
The stats prove that Alvarez endured an awful day at the office as he landed just two significant strikes on McGregor’s head in the eight minutes of action and failed to complete any of his three takedown attempts.
The first of a number of jarring left hands shook Alvarez certainly, but the Irishman’s head coach John Kavanagh saw the beginning of the end long before the first bomb landed.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani on the MMA Hour, Kavanagh revealed that the nervousness he saw in Alvarez’s corner let him know that the fight wouldn’t last long at all.
“Within the opening seconds, I could hear their corner and there seemed to be panic and screaming and this is within the opening 15 or 20 seconds,” Kavanagh said.
“It was so loud and they’re only 30 feet across. And he seemed kind of like he was talking to them and it just looked like disarray.
“In my head I was thinking ‘This is going to go bad fast!’
“It’s another example of the difficulty of transferring what you might have done in the gym to this type of environment and it’s something that no one will understand until they face Conor… that even being in the corner against him can rattle people.
“Obviously his corner are excellent and experienced but they seemed to fall apart a little bit and his gameplan seemed to go out the window.
“Of course he got tagged within 60 seconds quite badly and his recovery was incredible. I couldn’t believe it.
“He was like an accordion and he actually went ‘Nope!’ and I had a flash in my head of like ‘It’s another Zombie like Nate who will continue walking forward,’ but then obviously what happened happened.”
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