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Conor McGregor’s head coach John Kavanagh believes an ankle injury he sustained during training camp may have contributed to the broken leg that ended the headliner of UFC 264.
According to Kavanagh, former UFC two-division champion McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC) entered the fight with pre-existing issues in the same leg that was broken in his first-round loss by TKO to Dustin Poirier (28-6 MMA, 20-5 UFC) in Saturday’s trilogy fight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Kavanagh said McGregor had visited a doctor in California in the weeks leading up to UFC 264, and while nothing serious was discovered, he theorized there might be a connection during a Q&A Instagram with Laura Sanko for Wimp 2 Warrior.
“A small part of that ankle injury got worse during the camp,” Kavanagh said. “We scanned it. Did that play a small role in his weakening? I do not know. We were (with a doctor) a few weeks ago to have an ankle scan. … Maybe there was something in there. It would seem unusual for a young, healthy, fit man to be able to wrap his foot around an elbow and (break it) without there being anything (wrong) there before. You can play these guessing games all day long.
Kavanagh said he identified when the fight-ending damage to McGregor’s leg occurred. He said McGregor kicked Poirier’s elbow in the last minute of the lap, which set the stage for when he backed up and collapsed onto the canvas after missing a punch .
“He kicks the leg and then he throws a tee,” Kavanagh said. “This is clearly where the fracture occurred. He throws an aggressive kick, Dustin bombs with the main hand, and the foot wraps around the elbow in the same way as (Anderson) Silva and (Chris) Weidman. They wrapped their foot around the shin, (McGregor) wrapped his shin around the elbow.
McGregor suffered a broken shin bone in the loss to Poirier in what was a planned rubber match. UFC President Dana White has said the Irishman is due for surgery on Sunday, and Kavanagh has confirmed that.
“He’s in the hospital right now,” Kavanagh said. “I’ll go there after that to check in.” It’s a bitter pill to swallow. This sport is the highest and the lowest the lowest. We need to take the time to assess what the next step will be. Obviously, rehabilitation and recovery is where it is.
As for how the fight went before McGregor’s injury, the SBG Ireland coach said he couldn’t have been happier with his athlete.
Kavanagh believed McGregor was getting into his rhythm and heading for a finish, but didn’t have a chance to get into second frame. It was disappointing, he said, but Kavanagh gave Poirier credit for the victory.
“It was going fantastic,” Kavanagh said. “I thought he looked really, really good in there. … I wasn’t worried at all. I was actually really, really happy. … At 4.30 am or even 4.45 am (of Round 1), everything is ready. I thought the energy looked good, the technique looked good. A few tweaks between rounds, and I thought Round 2 was on track to get there, or keep pace for the rest of the fight.
“Credit to Dustin. He won. It’s an unsatisfactory end of the evening. … He doesn’t feel properly finished. (There was no) closure.
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