Conor McGregor's coach wants Irishman to fight Khabib or Nate Diaz next

A lot has been made of Conor McGregor going up against Floyd Mayweather. Many obstacles remain for the fight to occur and it is far from certain if it will even happen.

One person who hasn’t said too much on the matter is McGregor’s head coach at Straight Blast Gym in Ireland. Unlike those who believe the showdown will not take place, John Kavanagh believes his protégé will step in against the boxing great.

“I can’t answer that because I’m not privy to all that’s going on,” Kavanagh told Submission Radio. “It seems like it’s coming. When or how definite, I don’t know, but it’s looking more likely. And the two guys seem to want it and they’re making moves towards it, but I won’t lie, I don’t know is the short answer. There seems to be a lot of steps to get over with various commissions involved and different promotions involved and so on and so forth, but it’s a fight that’s getting more and more momentum every day and more and more people want to see it. So if you ask just me, my personal uneducated opinion on it, I would say that I believe it’s gonna happen.”

Believing it’s going to happen is one thing and wanting it to happen is another. If it was up to the long-time coach of the UFC lightweight champion, he would have McGregor stay in the sport which has made him a mega-star and go up against Nate Diaz in a trilogy fight or the winner of Saturday’s UFC 209 co-main event for the interim lightweight title between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson.

“My number one thing would be for Conor to fight MMA,” Kavanagh stated. “That’s my number one thing. That’s my selfish number one, what I would like to see. Which opponent? I’ve said it before – the Nate [Diaz] rematch interests me a lot because it’s 1-1 and how the styles match up. Almost on a par with that, not much difference, will be the winner of Khabib and [Tony] Ferguson this weekend.”

The Ferguson-Nurmagomedov clash is the most anticipated fight so far in 2017 with UFC president Dana White saying the winner will likely to face McGregor. Kavanagh likes the Russian to prevail this weekend. The fighter who likes to get into it with bears reminds him of former welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, who will battle middleweight champion Michael Bisping sometime in 2017.

“I think Khabib does it, so I think Khabib will be the winner,” Kavanagh said. “So Khabib will be the match up out of that. Below that would be [Georges St-Pierre]. Purely because GSP was an incredible fighter. [I’m a] big fan of him, I’ve learnt (sic) a lot from watching his fights, but it’s a long time since he’s fought and the game changes very, very quickly and I think Khabib is sort of like a better version of GSP. Although we don’t know, it’s hard to tell how GSP and Khabib would match up. But yeah, MMA-wise, Nate or almost on par winner of Khabib/Ferguson.”