With Conor McGregor’s boxing debut set to go down this Saturday night, fighters and fans have been voicing their predictions on how they believe the fight will go. Now SBG Ireland head coach and coach to Conor McGregor, Jon Kavanagh has provided his detailed prediction for the match up.
In an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, as transcribed by MMA Fighting, Kavanagh said “When the two of them walk to the middle, one of them has to take a back step. If Floyd takes a back step, which I believe he will, then I predict round six. That’s my prediction on it. I think for the first five rounds, he will back up, he will lie on the ropes the way he does, he will cover up and try to just absorb, and try to wear Conor down. That’s how I think he’ll approach the fight.
“If he doesn’t take a back step, and we’ll all see it — we’ll all see their feet, we’ll all see who walks backwards — if he walks forward and exchanges, it’ll be a one-round fight. It’ll be over in a minute. Because he’d be fighting in such a way that’s not normal to him, he won’t have had time to develop the skillset for an aggressive exchanging fighter. Like I said, I didn’t know a lot about Floyd before this, but I did watch his fights for his defensive work. So for him to go in there and try to trade with Conor and not walk backwards, would be so alien to him but so normal for Conor — that’s exactly what Conor’s the best at — he’ll be unconscious in a minute.
“But I think he skips to the middle. I think he has his classic hand position, Philly Shell hand position, and he’ll feint and throw a jab or something, Conor will walk forward, [Mayweather will] back up, and he’ll aim to just pot-shot, cover up, cover up, pot-shot, clinch, pot-shot, and just try to get through the first couple of rounds. As I believe that will be the case, that will be the scenario, I think round six, Conor’s hand is raised.”
