There must have been doubts, even amid all the talk of a deal being close, that Conor McGregor would ever get to lace up boxing gloves to take on Floyd Mayweather Jr.
John Kavanagh knew McGregor’s heart was set on making his professional boxing debut and, McGregor being McGregor, against the best counter-puncher of his generation.
McGregor’s coach was on The MMA Hour, on Monday, and he likened ‘The Notorious’ getting his latest fighting dream realised to the negotiations for his lightweight title fight against former champion Eddie Alvarez.
Back then, Alvarez had been stalling for more money before he would sign on to defend his belt against McGregor. ‘The Underground King’ did not get what he wanted but signed the bout contract and led to McGregor texting his coach at 2am with the following message:
‘Airport 10 am.’
In comparison, the Mayweather bout was sorted with plenty of time to spare. Handy, as McGregor will need every moment possible to prepare himself to fight the 49-0 Mayweather.
Kavanagh told host Ariel Helwani how, once McGregor had signed on the dotted line to fight ‘Money’, there was another late-night text. He said:
“It was almost similar, the way it played out. It was on, it was off. It was on, it was off.
“Then I got the text from him –Â ‘It’s on. 154 [pounds]. August 26th. Let’s go!’
“It was kind of that simple. I thought maybe Mayweather was maybe playing a game and when he got the contract back from McGregor he thought, ‘Oh, this is for real. I thought this was let’s boost our social media profiles’ or something like that. But it was never that for Conor.”
Kavanagh added that McGregor has told him he is keen to get back into the Octagon by December of this year.
Coach John Kavanagh is confident Conor McGregor will return to MMA after boxing match with Mayweather. #TheMMAHour https://t.co/hswRoy4crf pic.twitter.com/n8ipyjoK1s
— MMA Fighting (@MMAFighting) June 26, 2017
Kavanagh did not say whether or not McGregor would fight lightweight or featherweight but UFC fans would just be delighted to see him back.
