Conor McGregor’s coach provides update on UFC comeback: ‘We’re already training’

Join the Miguel Delaney Inside Football Join the Miguel Delaney Inside newsletter to get exclusive access and unparalleled insight. Football NewsletterJoin the Miguel Delaney inside Football newsletterConor McGregor’s coach has said the pair have “already” McGregor is training for a possible UFC fight in June at the White House. He has expressed his desire to compete in the White House at an event that the UFC is planning, despite serving an 18-month anti-doping suspension. The Irishman received the ban in October after three failures to provide whereabouts. However, the ban will be backdated to September 20,24 and McGregor can fight again in March. The former two-weight champion has not competed since July 2021, when he suffered a broken leg, and a 2024 return was thwarted on two weeks’ notice when McGregor broke his toe. Now, the 37-year-old’s coach John Kavanagh has lifted the lid on McGregor’s training situation, telling Ariel Helwani on Monday: “On our end, we’re 100 per cent in. He’s asked me to basically lay out a programme between now and June of how we’ll ramp up our training. “He’s showing up again, he’s back in the gym most mornings – early – and he’s just having fun with it… I got a bunch of messages after the show [UFC 322] on Saturday night; he wants to fight everybody! But certainly he wants to get on that [White House] card. “How it works from a management point of view, that’s between them, so I don’t really get involved in that. But from a training point of view, he’s already tasked me with putting together a team of suitable training partners. We’ll do some of it in the gym, some of it in his house.open image in galleryConor McGregor (left) broke his leg in a 2021 defeat by Dustin Poirier – his second loss to the American in six months (Getty Images)“So, he’s fully locked in that we’re gonna be making the walk in six or seven months. Like I said: if it’s Conor’s choice, he’s in. I don’t know how it will work with the UFC, I don’t know how all of that will go.“I mean, the last one, we were so freaking close until he clipped Tristan [a training partner] on the elbow. So look, we’ve just got to get back there again. I think [Michael] Chandler’s not been quiet about wanting to be that guy.”Kavanagh was referring to the former Bellator three-time champion Chandler. He was supposed to face McGregor, a broken toe McGregor, in June 2024. Ahead of that planned contest, McGregor and the American, 39, were opposing coaches on the UFC’s reality television show The Ultimate Fighter.open image in galleryLast time out, Michael Chandler (left) was stopped by Paddy Pimblett in April (Getty Images)“I think the match-up makes sense, I think it’d be a fun one,” Kavanagh continued. “I’d love it. I think they have kind of a bit of a spark between them, they’ve done some stuff together before. I think it’d be a fun fight week, press conference, all of that.“Style-wise, that kind of shorter, stockier wrestler – he’s faced a few of those in his day. And yeah, I’m in the mindset that that’s what we’re doing, so we’re already beginning our training for that.”
2025-11-18 09:50:33