John Kavanagh doesn’t think Conor McGregor is finished. The coach who has been in McGregor’s corner since the beginning told Ariel Helwani that the former two-division champ still has competition left in him, even after the injury that ended his comeback against Max Holloway at UFC 329. Helwani posted the clips on X on Tuesday, and the Irish Star also ran the story.
“I just don’t feel he’s done with competition just yet,” Kavanagh said. “What does that look like? I don’t know.”
That second sentence is doing a lot of work. Kavanagh isn’t selling a date, an opponent or a weight class. He’s selling a feeling, backed by what he says he’s seen in the gym. According to Kavanagh, McGregor has been very aggressive with his therapy and recovery, and the coach said it’s hard for him to picture UFC 329 as the last image of McGregor’s career.
View post on X
“Can he make another comeback and get back into that fight shape? If anybody can, he can,” Kavanagh said.
The kick, and the conspiracy theories
Kavanagh also went after the theory that McGregor walked into the Holloway fight already hurt. His answer was about as blunt as a coach gets.
“And for the conspiracy theorists out there, he walked in with no injury. Zero injury. There was absolutely no injury,” he said.
View post on X
He went further, saying McGregor was probably healthier going into UFC 329 than he was for his previous few fights. Kavanagh explained that McGregor always likes to have his first move of a fight planned, and this time it was a kick he’d drilled a thousand times. Kavanagh said McGregor opened every sparring session with it, and it always worked, either landing clean or knocking the other guy off balance.
“Everything was really 100%, and then it wasn’t,” Kavanagh said.
Where McGregor stands
The Holloway loss came after a long layoff, and it went into the books as an injury result instead of the fight everyone had paid to see. McGregor is 38, according to a list making the rounds on X that also puts Alex Pereira at 39 and Justin Gaethje at 37.
Jose Aldo, who lost his featherweight title to McGregor in 13 seconds at UFC 194 in December 2015, has been one of the more sympathetic voices since. Aldo told MMA Fighting in September that the result was sad given how many millions of people tuned in for fight week, and he has advised McGregor to drop back to lightweight after competing at welterweight in recent fights. Aldo also wondered out loud whether McGregor can come back at a high level after so much time away, and noted the injury means even more time on the shelf.
View post on X
Nobody has announced anything. No date, no opponent, no division.
My take: Kavanagh’s “I don’t know” is the most honest thing anyone in the McGregor camp has said in years, and I’ll take that over a cryptic Instagram countdown every time. Coaches always believe. What matters is whether a 38-year-old coming off a long layoff and a fresh injury can get back to the weight Aldo is pointing him toward, and nobody, including Kavanagh, has put a timeline on that yet.
