Conor McGregor coach John Kavanagh: Alvarez fight slightly easier path to 2 titles than dos Anjos

Conor McGregor head trainer John Kavanagh knows his most famous student has history in front of him on Saturday night.

But when it comes to McGregor’s shot at becoming the first concurrent two-division champ in UFC history, Kavanagh believes the Irishman’s path got a little easier than if it had gone down in March like originally planned.

Conor McGregor (20-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC), the UFC’s featherweight champion, was supposed to fight then-lightweight champ Rafael dos Anjos in March at UFC 196. But dos Anjos pulled out with an injury. In the meantime, McGregor has fought Nate Diaz twice – at welterweight, going 1-1 – and now on Saturday will challenge Eddie Alvarez (28-4 MMA, 3-1 UFC) for the lightweight belt in the UFC 200 main event at Madison Square Garden in New York on a card expected to be the biggest UFC pay-per-view in history.

And Alvarez, Kavanagh believes, presents an easier path to UFC history than dos Anjos would have.

“I think Alvarez is a little bit more straightforward,” Kavanagh told MMAjunkie in an interview promoting his book, ‘Win or Learn.'” “Dos Anjos obviously has a world-class submission game on the ground. Alvarez is more basic on the ground. He’s just going to hold you there and throw some shots, whereas dos Anjos has very slick jiu-jitsu. In other respects, they’re both quite similar in that they’re both physically similar, and similar style. A couple punches, then try to get a takedown. But I think Eddie is slightly the easier fight because he’s orthodox and doesn’t have quite the submission game as dos Anjos.”

John Kavanagh

McGregor is about a -150 favorite in the fight against Alvarez, who hails from Philadelphia, not far from New York City. It’s his first title defense after taking the belt from dos Anjos in July. McGregor has yet to defend his featherweight title after unseating longtime champ Jose Aldo with a 13-second knockout this past December.

With that Aldo fight, plus the two Diaz fights at UFC 196 in March and UFC 202 in August, McGregor will have four main-event fights in less than a year’s time. But that, Kavanagh thinks, works to his advantage.

“Conor is best when he’s kept busy like this,” the coach said. “As long as there’s no injuries stopping him competing, I think it actually works out for the best. If you take long breaks between fights, sometimes you can overthink things. Sometimes fighters who haven’t fought in more than a year and they’re nervous and not familiar with those feelings. He’s fighting every couple weeks so it’s very familiar, he’s very comfortable backstage. It’s actually worked out to be a blessing in the long run and he’s had a lot more preparation for this lightweight title fight than he would have if he had gotten this (shot at a second title) last March. It’s positive.”

Questions have surrounded McGregor as to whether he’ll ever return to the featherweight division – especially if he wins the lightweight title on Saturday night. UFC President Dana White has said if he wins, he’ll have to give up one of the belts. (Kavanagh, for his part, isn’t sure just what will happen if he has a two-division champ on his hand, but have fun getting one away from him: “I wish the best of luck to anybody that tries to come take those belts off him.”)

McGregor’s weight cut to 145 isn’t one he relishes, and has said as much in the past. At 155, he may be at his most comfortable size. Going up from there, he can run into size problems like he seemed to experience in the first fight with Diaz, in which he was submitted in the second round. Kavanagh said McGregor at 155, compared to 145 and 170, is his “Goldilocks weight.”

“With Nate, you’ve got to take into account not just weight, but reach,” Kavanagh said. “That was really the point. You’re dealing with a man that can hold you at range with his jab because he’s taller with a longer reach. Then, when you get on the inside, you’re dealing with a man that’s quite heavier than you, so he’s heavier and he’s taller. Whereas I think it’s true to say Eddie will be a little bit heavier than Conor on fight night, he’s going to be dealing with a significant reach disadvantage. That’s going to be a major difference in this contest.

“Conor has range, he can hold him on the outside and then if Eddie does close the distance, yes, he’s probably going to have a small weight advantage, but not the same weight advantage as Nate did. But this is going to be a range war, and Eddie’s losing that one.”

And if it’s range that is the issue for Alvarez come Saturday night, Kavanagh believes his end will come courtesy of the left hand McGregor has promised to deliver on in the past.

“I can see a similar fight to (Chad) Mendes (at UFC 189),” he said. “I think Eddie will use up a lot of energy in Round 1 trying to pin Conor to the fence. I think late in Round 2, the left hand will land and that will be all she wrote.”

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