John Kavanagh, a longtime coach and friend of Conor McGregor, was asked about his opinion on the bizarre ending to the fight between Magomed Ankalaev and Johnny Walker, which took place this past weekend at UFC 294.
Walker, who was also a pupil of Kavanagh’s, received an illegal knee to the face from Ankalaev several minutes into the first round of the fight.
The referee allowed the cage-side doctor to enter the octagon to check on Walker, who was declared unable to continue fighting after the examination. The referee then gave the Brazilian some time to recover.
At first, it wasn’t clear why the doctor instructed the referee to stop the battle before it even started. After additional investigation, it was found out that Johnny Walker did not know the answer to the question of what country he was in when he was questioned about it.
It is interesting to note that despite Magomed Ankalaev throwing an illegal strike, the fight was ruled a no-contest and he was not disqualified from the competition.
The trainer of Conor McGregor was extremely dissatisfied with the official result of the bout and took to X (which was once known as Twitter) to voice his displeasure with the decision.
Kavanagh made a reference to the famous phrase by Khabib Nurmagomedov, “No. 1 bulls**t,” and wrote the following:
“Was that a mistake on our part?” What on earth does he plan to do? Why don’t you just come clean and admit that you lack the intestinal fortitude to enforce the rules? Just let us know if there aren’t any rules to follow. We are able to become ready for that. No. 1 load of bulls**t.”
Conor McGregor casts doubt on the legitimacy of Islam Makhachev’s knockout victory at UFC 294.
Conor McGregor had his complete attention centered on the main event of UFC 294, which was set to take place between Islam Makhachev and Alexander Volkanovski.
Ahead of fight night, Makhachev promised Volkanovski that he would be a more formidable opponent than the one they had previously met at UFC Perth in February.
This past weekend, the lightweight champion demonstrated that his claims are real, despite the fact that ‘The Great’ appeared to be doubtful about his comments.
In the first round, the Dagestani delivered a devastating left high-kick that caused Volkanovski significant damage. After that, Makhachev followed up with several ground-and-pound attacks, which, according to Conor McGregor, were potentially in violation of the rules.
It appeared that several of the punches landed in the “mohawk” area of the back of Volkanovski’s head, which is an unlawful location to hit an opponent in a mixed martial arts match.
Neither the UFC commentary crew nor CEO Dana White made much of an effort to discuss the ground strikes during the fight. However, Conor McGregor posted a statement on X that has since been removed in which he discussed the punches.
“A challenging sport for referees. It is a challenging situation to try to halt that with a warning or a point deduction when [Volkanovski] was effectively eliminated already. However, there would unquestionably be valid reasons for doing so. It certainly would have been a tense situation. I wish I could have been there to witness it all unfold. The images taken from the back of the head are not very good. [Credit goes to TalkSPORT]
