John Kavanagh gives update on Conor McGregor’s potential return to featherweight

Since winning the UFC featherweight championship back in December, Conor McGregor went up to welterweight for a UFC 196 fight with Nate Diaz, which was initially supposed to be a lightweight title fight with Rafael dos Anjos.

McGregor lost the fight, and then was rebooked to fight Diaz at UFC 200, however he was pulled from the card after refusing to fulfill his media obligations for the event. Now, with Frankie Edgar vs. Jose Aldo set for the interim featherweight championship at UFC 200, and McGregor vs. Diaz II set for UFC 202, many are wondering if McGregor will ever go back down to featherweight to defend his title.

SBG Ireland head coach John Kavanagh spoke to Fox Sports to discuss the situation:

“The short answer is I don’t know,” said Kavanagh. “I’m very intrigued to see the Aldo and Edgar fight. I hope Aldo is fully recovered from the bad knockout. I thought (Chad) Mendes went back in there really quick after the knockout against Conor.”

“People don’t realize the damage it does — it takes a long time to recover, and I think Mendes went down quicker in that fight because of that,” added Kavanagh. “Maybe if he’d let himself rest a bit more he might have had more fight for Edgar. I hope that’s not the case for Aldo, (I hope) we get to see a solid version of Aldo and a new kind of improved Edgar, and see what different from the first fight. So yea, let’s see that, and assess after the rematch. It’s kind of those two names and (Max) Holloway kind of in the mix, so it’s an interesting time.”

While Frankie Edgar believes that McGregor will never return to featherweight, McGregor has revealed that an interim featherweight title was actually his idea in order to get him interested in returning to the featherweight division.