John Kavanagh Talks Conor McGregor, Says Star’s “Trying to Make Himself a Better Person”

In the last few years, Conor McGregor has become one of the more polarizing fighters in the game, on account of several, highly publicized incidents he’s been involved in. But, following his triumphant return at UFC 246, McGregor’s longtime coach, John Kavanagh’s reporting the star’s working on being a better human.

Kavanagh comments on McGregor’s comeback

If you’ve followed McGregor over the years, then you know that he’s made plenty of headlines for incidents outside of the cage. Some of these include his now infamous, dolly attack at UFC 223, McGregor smashing the phone of a fan, and the former champ sucker punching an elderly man in a Dublin pub.

The star has talked about letting down his supporters, and leading up to McGregor’s bout with Donald Cerrone last month, he was very respectful towards “Cowboy”.

Well,  in recent interview Kavanagh did with RTE, the Straight Blast Gym leader said the following about McGregor:

“It comes with the territory. Negative headlines get more clicks than positive headlines. That’s just the media game.

“He’s spoken himself about his slips and his mistakes. He’s had to pay for those outside of the sport. I feel we’re on a good comeback story – he had a great win in January – but yeah, like most things in life you take the good with the bad, you roll with it and try to improve, learn from mistakes and get better as a human being and an athlete as you go on.

“It’s a very weird rise from being an unknown guy in Dublin, doing a sport no one has heard of, to being a global superstar. Everything you say and do is analysed.

“He had to make his mistakes very publicly and visibly. I’m proud of how he’s come through those things. He’s owned up to his mistakes. He’s trying to make himself a better person and I’m behind that.

“I’d like to think [his mistakes haven’t damaged the sport]. I think people who are interested in the sport realise it’s not one person.”

Reports coming out McGregor’s camp for UFC 246 also pointed to him being extremely focused, which was in keeping to comments he made last fall. So, it’s going to be really interesting to see what transpires with McGregor over the coming months and whether his headlines remain tied to fighting in the Octagon.

Still no word on McGregor’s next bout

Heading into 2020, McGregor talked repeatedly about fighting three times this year and after his win at UFC 246, he also said he wanted to fight again this spring.  But, as February nears it’s ends, there’s been no news about that happening. So, increasingly it’s looking like we won’t see McGregor back in action until late summer, early fall.