John Kavanagh Reveals Conor McGregor’s Motivation Behind UFC Return

Conor McGregor will make his highly-anticipated return to the Octagon later this month (Sat. January 18, 2020) in the main event of UFC 246 on pay-per-view (PPV).

McGregor takes on Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone at welterweight. It will be McGregor’s first fight since his loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 in October of 2018. That was only the second time McGregor lost under the UFC’s banner. His first defeat was a submission loss to Nate Diaz at UFC 196, a fight McGregor bounced back from by rematching Diaz and winning via decision.

Now, many believe McGregor is similarly motivated against Cerrone, coming off his loss to Nurmagomedov. However, according to head coach John Kavanagh in a recent interview with The Mac Life, Kavanagh explains that’s not the case.

”I think it’s even more because the Diaz fight was ‘Okay, we’re going to train hard for four months, I want to get that rematch, I shouldn’t have lost the way I lost.’ That was the motivation and the mentality,” Kavanagh said. (via MMA Mania)

“This one is different because it’s not a rematch against Khabib, it’s just ‘a fight’ if you want to look at it that way. It’s more a return to really loving all aspects of it and trying to make the training around that, around the passion he had around getting ready for any fight, let’s say, or the Aldo fight when training was fun, experimenting with techniques and looking for new moves.

“So it’s different than the motivation being revenge. The motivation here seems to be love, and love is stronger than revenge.”

Furthermore, McGregor seems to be taking the lead in regards to his training camp for Cerrone, as Kavanagh praised McGregor’s combat sports IQ.

“With Conor’s fighting IQ, with Conor’s understanding of the game, really, this training camp is about all of us getting out of his way,” Kavanagh said (via MMA Fighting). “Provide him an environment where he gets different looks, different feels, and support him.

“Where he wants the training camp to go, with intensities, and listening to him – where he has days where he has days where he wants to push hard, and days where he wants to slow down. It’s not so much about us coaches sitting down to game plan and then filling Conor in. Conor knows more about fighting than the rest of us put together.”

What do you make of Kavanagh saying McGregor’s motivation for his UFC return is love?