Conor McGregor’s long-time coach John Kavanagh has responded enthusiastically to talk of a four-man lightweight tournament between the division’s leading stars.
“When the UFC resumes, there’s 2 fights that need to be made,” MMAHistoryToday initially wrote on Twitter.
“Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson. Conor McGregor vs. Justin Gaethje.”
Kavanagh saw the post and added his weight behind it.
“Semi finals in Aug. Finals NYE,” Kavanagh replied.
In reality this doesn’t sound too far fetched. Before Nurmagomedov withdrew from his UFc 249 title fight with Ferguson due to travel restrictions, there had already been talk that McGregor might be looking to fight Gaethje next.
Of course Gaethje then ended up stepping in for Nurmagomedov to fight Ferguson until the entire card was postponed indefinitely, but it’s hard to imagine that the UFC won’t revert to their original plan now to have Nurmagomeov fight him once the coronavirus situation eases off.
So that paves the way for McGregor and Gaethje to also fight, and that would nicely set up a title fight for the winner.
The only snag in the plan is Kavangh’s timeline, which certainly doesn’t sound outside of the realm of possibility, but with so much uncertainty about when the virus may subside enough to allow events to resume, no-one can say for sure when any of this could actually come to fruition.