Coach: Knee injury prevented McGregor from live wrestling during training for UFC 189
Despite emerging victorious against Chad Mendes at UFC 189 last week, Conor McGregor didn't really answer too many questions about his wrestling.
Long considered a protected contender who was never forced to face a power wrestler during his championship ascension, McGregor was taken down almost at will by Mendes, but was still able to escape the MGM Grand Garden Arena with the interim featherweight title strapped around his waist.
McGregor's victory is even more incredible when you consider his circumstances heading into the event. According to his coach, John Kavanagh, a knee injury prevented the outspoken Irishman from doing any wrestling during training camp. That problem was magnified when champion Jose Aldo dropped out and Chad Mendes, the division's best wrestler, was slotted in Aldo's place.
"I've gotta be honest, when we were walking out to this fight it was in the back of my mind that we haven't done a single round of live wrestling," Kavanagh told "The MMA Hour" on Monday, according to MMAFighting.com's Marc Raimondi. "I had my eyebrows raised and thought, let's see what happens."
Looking as though he was about to go up two rounds to none in their bout, Mendes took McGregor down multiple times and doled out heavy elbows every time they hit the mat. McGregor survived the onslaught and carved Mendes up whenever they were upright, finishing the Team Alpha Male product with a crushing left cross with three seconds remaining in the second round.
"Really the first round of full wrestling was done in that fight," Kavanagh said. "His timing a little bit on the sprawl and dealing with the shot was not quite there. It started getting better as the fight went on. Do I think a rematch if it does happen down the line would be different? Yes, for both of them."
With the McGregor hype train still very much on the tracks, an Aldo-McGregor showdown is still the most anticipated bout of 2015.
"I feel like he's the champion," Kavanagh said of the legitimacy of McGregor's interim title. "He's done pretty special things in the UFC in quite a short period of time. He's been willing to accept any challenge. I don't know if there's many fighters with what he had in front of him with two weeks' notice would have accepted (it)."