It looks like the announcement of Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz 2 for UFC 202 in August won’t stop the talk of a potential boxing match between “The Notorious” one and Floyd Mayweather.
McGregor’s coach, John Kavanagh, recently spoke with MMA Underground’s Jonathan Shrager to promote his new book, “Win Or Learn,” and during the discussion, he spoke about what the Diaz announcement means for McGregor’s rumored boxing match with Mayweather.
“It puts it on hold. I think that contest will happen eventually but it’s on hold for now. I’d be very surprised if it doesn’t at some stage. I think it’s a bigger fight; I think there’s a lot of intrigue about it. I could be 100% wrong. Right now we’re focusing on August 20th. We have an important rematch – a mixed martial arts fight – but if in time that fight was to be announced it would not surprise me and I think it would be an interesting one.”
As the SBG Ireland head coach continued, he spoke specifically of the style breakdown between McGregor and Mayweather, joking that McGregor might need to utilize some of his MMA skills in such a match.
“It’s hard to beat Floyd with boxing because he seems to be almost perfect in terms of how defensive he is. I think if you’re a classically trained boxer you’re gonna lose to Floyd because he just seems to make everybody look quite ordinary. But maybe somebody who doesn’t strike like a boxer might be a new look for him. Maybe the odd sly knee and leg kick as well. [Laughs.] You get two warnings. [Laughs.]
“But seriously I think Conor’s style is very unusual and Floyd is – I’m personally a fan of his style. I love watching him. I love watching fighters who don’t get hit… I think it’s absolutely beautiful and that’s why I mean I think he is one of the older school trained fighters and the boxing approach most are using against him just won’t work because he’s been doing this for so long. He’s in fantastic shape for his age and he hasn’t taken much head trauma.
“So if you understand anything about skill development you’ll know that he’s got so many hours of that purposeful practice. Not only purposeful practice but actual competitive experience, so I don’t think that same approach will beat him. But I think the way we strike in mixed martial arts and some of the movements we use and some of the approaches we use, he won’t have the software ready ignition system to that way of moving and way of standing. It would be different to him. So that and a couple of sly elbows as well. [Laughs].”
Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz 2 headlines UFC 202 on August 20, 2016. Join us here at MMANews.com for live UFC 202 coverage on 8/20.
H/T: MMAFighting.com
