McGregor head coach details McGregor’s advantages

When he was a 22-year-old and known as Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali beat 8-1 odds and Sonny Liston, as the latter refused to come out for the 7th. The winner found a camera and a microphone and uttered five words that came in no small part to define him.

I shook up the world!

In his latest column for Ireland’s The42.ie, Conor McGregor’s head coach, SBGi founder John Kavanagh vowed to do the same. And the odds are, insanely, way better than those Ali faced:
Floyd Mayweather -550
Conor McGregor +375

On one of my first trips to Las Vegas with Conor McGregor, probably back in 2014, I recall him mentioning the possibility of a fight against Floyd Mayweather. I stopped doubting him a long time ago at this stage, but I remember at the time laughing it off as nothing more than a novel idea that could never possibly become a reality.

We’re in the midst of three good weeks of training here in Ireland, before departing for Las Vegas in mid-July. 

You may have caught a glimpse of the interior of the gym on social media over the last few days, as I arranged for a large mural to be painted just behind the ring by the people at Subset.ie. It depicts Conor landing a left hand on Mayweather.

I wanted to put something suitable on the wall because Conor is a big believer in visualization and manifesting what you can conceive into reality. That’s the shot we believe will win the fight for Conor and it’s now there for us to see whenever we train.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVjp-LGDSaX

I believe we have a number of advantages going into this fight. Often, people who are experts in a certain field will tell you that it can actually be more awkward to deal with somebody who’s not from the same field. They’d rather deal with the top contender from their own discipline because he’ll move in a way that you assume he’ll move.

Mayweather has been in the boxing world for his entire career and everyone he’s faced has moved in a certain way that he’s pre-conditioned to handle. Now he’s going up against a guy who doesn’t follow any set patterns, who can deploy a variety of different styles of fighting and is not one bit intimidated. Conor is — as we all are here — 100% confident in victory. That kind of person is very difficult to deal with.

There’s a running theme with his career where firstly an idea will seem ridiculous, secondly it’s eventually accepted, and then finally people will come up with a new challenge which apparently he’ll never be able to overcome. We’re used to it now and that’s fine with us.

We’re looking forward to shocking the world — again.

Kavanagh also said there is a tentative plan for Conor to fight in December, but noted accurately, “it’s always difficult to predict what Conor is going to do next.” The coach gave a previously little remarked upon example – what if he Conor KOs Floyd in the first. Then a rematch will be called for, and McGregor will have to decide if he wants to fight the undefeated Khabib Nurmagomedov for 10 million, or the boxer he just defeated for 100+ million.