SBG Ireland coach John Kavanagh spoke with Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of “The MMA Hour” at MMAFighting.com and broke down the technical aspects behind Conor McGregor’s loss to Nate Diaz at UFC 196 last Saturday evening.
According to Kavanagh, McGregor loaded up on his left hand too often, among other technical ineffeciences that he feels led to his fighter suffering his first loss inside the Octagon inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena on March 5th.
“Yeah, a lot of things were working,” Kavanagh said during his appearance on the weekly MMA Fighting program. “I did think that he maybe was loading up a little on his left hand, especially when you’re facing a same stance fighter. Nate’s kind of good at using that shoulder roll that boxers do to defend themselves. A lot of big lefts that weren’t catching him flush. They were kind of bouncing off his shoulder, or Nate was moving with the shot so weren’t having the impact they’d have on an opposite stance fighter or someone who wasn’t as highly skilled as Nate.
“But still, some good shots landed. He did get taken down by a single leg by Nate, but I thought Conor did very well, he executed a nice sweep and was taking the guard, almost passed and landed some good shots. So, all in all, it was a good round. I imagine the judges gave that round to Conor. I can’t see how it would have went otherwise.”
Kavanagh admits that his fighter explained things as good as one can immediately after the fight.
“If there was something to critique or take away from that fight, I think Conor almost immediately said it much better than I’m able to say, is that he was inefficient with his job and Nate was efficient. And that’s what I was trying to get across, and that’s what we saw happening. He kind of blew himself a little bit trying to take his head off with every single left hand rather than just landing it. Maybe I could have stole his own phrase and told him to keep it flowing.”
Kavanagh continued, “I think there was a good left cross, and it kind of stumbled Conor back. I kind of think it was really exhaustion at this stage. He looked really, really tired.
“At that stage it was clear that he was very, very tired. And if there’s one thing you’re never going to say about a Diaz brother is that he gets tired. He just has that incredible ability to just keep going and keep pushing themselves. They [Nate and Nick] are phenomenal athletes, the two of them. So I thought that tiredness and him being pushed back was when I was worried.”
