John Kavanagh, trainer of current two-division UFC World Champion Conor McGregor gave his take on a potential showdown of champions against the man “The Notorious” had a brief encounter with, leading to an immediate war of words on social media and later, a second face-to-face near-miss backstage at Madison Square Garden — Tyron Woodley.
Following their pair of encounters in New York and their performances at the debut event in the state earlier this month, a lot of fans have spoken about the possibility of the two fighting and the conclusion drawn by the majority is that “The Chosen One” would be just too big for “The Notorious” to overcome. To go one step further, many have even suggested Woodley would have an easy time handling McGregor.
Kavanagh doesn’t agree.
“I don’t see why not,” said the SBG Ireland head coach on Monday’s edition of “The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani” at MMAFighting.com. “I don’t know, maybe it won’t happen. We’ve got so many irons in the fire at this stage.”
Regarding the perspective amongst fans and media members who feel the fight would be a mismatch in favor of the larger UFC Welterweight Champion, Kavanagh said he doesn’t see what they do when envisioning the matchup. In fact, he pointed out the fact that he has personally seen the Irish mega-star handle bigger guys in the gym, while admitting that they would still need to be “super careful” of Woodley’s power.
“There’s no way Conor can touch this guy,” Kavanagh said, referencing some of the comments he has heard from those who feel Woodley is the easy favorite in the potential dream bout. “There is [a way], no one is perfect. There’s openings there.”
Kavanagh continued, “Of course, he’s a bigger man, he’s got more power and you’ve gotta be super careful, but Conor trains with big guys like this. I see him do amazing things in the gym all the time.”
Regarding the timeline for a potential showdown of three of UFC’s ten current overall champions, it would be late-2017 at the earliest, if the UFC and the parties involved all go that direction.
In the case of McGregor, he is currently on a hiatus from the fight game to be with his better-half while the couple awaits the birth of their first child due in May.
In Woodley’s case, he is reportedly scheduled to duke it out with dangerous striker Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson in an immediate rematch of their UFC 205 “Fight of the Night” at UFC pay-per-view event in February of 2017.
Could Conor McGregor actually pull off winning a world title in a third UFC weight class? Considering all that he has accomplished already, you can’t exactly say with certainy that he couldn’t. Hopefully one day we find out.
