Issue 171

October 2018

John Kavanagh is Conor Mcgregor's coach and confidant. But he's much more than that. As the public speculates about his famous change, here's the man whose love of the sport is matched only by his ambition to use it to change the world.

Call it a dream, a lifelong ambition even, but for Dublin mixed martial arts pioneer, John Kavanagh, the mission was always to spread the lifestyle message of MMA across the world, and ultimately have it change lives. Like it did his own.

It has been a 20-year journey and in the last five years, through his global fame, through his friendship and inseparable working relationship with the inimitable Conor McGregor, the journey undertaken by the founder of Straight Blast Gym is starting to skyrocket.

Kavanagh reveals that his most famous pupil, McGregor is in the gym on a daily basis and that he is convinced the Irish fighter will be back sooner than we may believe in a UFC Octagon. And as the Pied Piper of MMA, he thinks he has found a new star in James Gallagher, whom he believes will win a world title in Bellator and complete for him a clean sweep of having UFC, TUF, and Bellator champions under his tutelage.

But that dream of bringing MMA to the world is also burgeoning with the expansion of SBG off-shoots in gyms worldwide.

Kavanagh, 41, now president of the Irish Mixed Martial Arts Association, and widely regarded as one of the leading MMA coaches in the world – a status that was recognized by fans at the World MMA Awards in 2017 when he won the acclaimed Coach of the Year gong – has a mercurial manner and approach to all things.

Sage advice, delivered in a profound way, oozes from him. Kavanagh first explained the growth of the SBG outfit -- from Dublin to the world. In recent times, that reach has even included new projects in the biggest markets, which includes China. “I think there’s 60 SBGs around the world now,” explains Kavanagh, taking a brief time out in Rome where he’s coaching one of his charges in that city’s first Bellator event.

“Some of those very much focus on the layperson, a fitness-type gym model. But my gym certainly has a huge emphasis on MMA fighting.”

A little on his own history and inception into the sport he lives and breathes. Kavanagh, from Churchdown, in the Irish capital, was inspired to take up mixed martial arts after watching footage of the very first UFC tournament in 1993. Kavanagh competed in some of the earliest local circuit MMA events in Ireland and the UK and is thought to be the first Irishman to receive a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It has since defined him.

It was always his dream to bring such a lifestyle to the masses and the mainstream.

“I don’t think I could have predicted how it’s gone,” he reflects.

“But I always loved martial arts. I got a group of guys early on who wanted to fight and that started it. It became something and it grew into a monster, and now most of my time is dedicated to it. I do love the fact people can still come into the gym.”

He explains, by way of example:

“Most of my time is spent on professional fighting, but last week a kid came in for a class and then Conor arrived to do a wrestling class. That kid got to sit down and watch Conor train. He was ten years old. In other sports, there isn’t as much contact with the stars. Can more civilized, but there’s still that instinct.”

Kavanagh has also been called a “life guru” by many, and that title is something he takes very seriously indeed.

“I don’t take this responsibility lightly,” he explains. “I get young men coming in who maybe have troubles outside of the gym. They think they’re coming in to learn to fight, but what they really learn is to get a bit of confidence and learn how to deal with losses.

“Losses are a physical thing in our sport,” he continues, “but they deal with that too when they go for an interview. That aspect plays a big part in what I want to do at SBG. The CEO of Bellator, Scott Coker said years ago that Bellator would have a family feel. It does.

"I’m from the same cloth. If I have 50 guys fighting, I don’t want to cut 45 of them to focus on five stars. I want all 50 of them to do well. Most of them might not make a living out of fighting, but I want the 50 of them to come out the other end of the program unhurt and improved as a person. If they come out of that as credible world champions, then that’s all the better.”

He cares deeply for all who pledge their time under him, and commit their lifeblood to success.

“Some of my guys are coming up and I need to be focused on securing good deals for them,” he reasons. “Eventually it’s not enough to just be on the mat with them. A kid who comes in at 20, I’ve got to make a plan for him for the next five years. The shelf life of an MMA athlete is short, maybe seven years. We’ve got to make sure by the end of that career they’re unhurt and they’ve made a few coins, and know how to spend money too, not to be frivolous with it. I need to prepare them for the end of their career too.”

We switch to talking of his most decorated pupil, the inimitable McGregor, with whom he has had a long and fruitful friendship and bond, stretching back 13 years. In the same breath,

Kavanagh talks of McGregor, but so too of James Gallagher, who has been with him since he was a young kid.

“Conor is celebrating his 30th birthday and James Gallagher is 21 in October,” he says. “There’s the next wave that was inspired by Conor eight years ago, right there. James was 13 when he first saw Conor. James will soon hit his athletic prime. We’re getting waves of these guys. With every new wave, I’ve got better and I can fast-track them. I’m much closer with Bellator and close with the UFC.

"With Conor, he was the one who wedged open the door and helped get his teammates in. He will always be the guy who made all of this possible.”

Kavanagh believes Gallagher, from, Strabane, currently with Bellator MMA who has recently moved from featherweight to bantamweight, and who is unbeaten after seven fights after joining the paid ranks three years ago, is the natural successor to ‘The Notorious’.

“There’s the obvious comparison with Gallagher. Twenty years of age, he’s fighting for the first time at 135 this summer. I think it’s a good move because he’s so small. I have no doubt we’ll get him down the right way. Win that fight, and then challenge for the belt. That’s one of the last trophies I don’t have, a Bellator belt.”

It is with pride that Kavanagh talks of leading the charge in Europe in the fast-developing, yet still fledgling sport of mixed martial arts. He had a TUF winner recently, of course, in Brad Katona, having come close when Russian-Irish Artem Lobov reached the final three years ago. He opted, however, not to be involved in the TUF series when McGregor was one of the coaches, in the Las Vegas-based series.

“I wasn’t there when Conor coached on The Ultimate Fighter. I didn’t want to do it because I felt a bit weird coaching guys I didn’t know. I stayed at home.

"We got close (to winning a title) with Artem Lobov who got to the final. But, Brad Katona and I had a great run. He’s a great kid. We’re very similar in the fact we’re both engineers and think the same way. I have a degree in engineering and maths. I can teach him structural things easily.

"I would say Gallagher is more of an artistic mind. I have a team doctor and he always brings Gallagher up as the one to show what a professional approach is. Gallagher will have all his paperwork done four weeks in advance. Whereas some guys are scrambling the night before, he has it done a month ago. He’s been like that since he was 14.”

But how tough is it for the likes of Gallagher to follow in the huge shadow that McGregor has cast?

“You can look at it two ways,” explains Kavanagh. “You can look at it as he overshadows everyone or you could look at how he’s given everyone great opportunities. They get fast-tracked because of him. Dillon Danis made his MMA debut on one of Bellator’s biggest shows. He didn’t even have an amateur fight. He wouldn’t have got that without his association with Conor. We focus on the positives.”

The burning question in MMA, of course, is if Conor is ever coming back. After his ‘sabbatical’ from defending the UFC lightweight crown almost two years ago, and since earning a reported, $99 million for fighting Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match in Las Vegas last August, will we see him in the Octagon again?

“I think he competes again,” states Kavanagh emphatically. “He is focusing on his (New York) case; we kind of want to get that behind us. Get that out of the way and then we’ll sit down and make a plan.”

The rumor mill has suggested that it will be straight into battle with the current UFC lightweight belt holder, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and far from disputing that, the coach says it is viable.

Surely, though, after almost two years away, it is a huge ask?

“It is, but it would be a mistake to think Conor has not been keeping in touch with his training,” he argues.

“OK, he likes his shiny things, his fast cars, but the real thing he loves is fighting. Some people get caught up looking at his social media life and that’s just one photo. He trains every day, it’s rare for him to skip sessions. It’s his real passion. All the watches, all the cars - what really lights him up is fighting.”

But would Kavanagh be concerned about Conor fighting Khabib straight away?

“I’d have to be honest and say no,” he says. “I’ve watched him spar and I’ve only seen improvements.”

It seems, then, that there is another chapter yet to be written in McGregor’s career, but how does it look from Kavanagh’s perspective.

After all, McGregor has broken almost every record in the UFC, held two concurrent belts, broken pay-per-view records, inspired a generation.

“I said to him a long time ago, he has to find his own motivation,” reveals Kavanagh.

“You never go away from this industry and sit on a beach eating food. The financial side of his life is done now. Whatever he makes from his next fight won’t really change things for him. What’s he going to do? Buy another Lamborghini? No matter what the figure is, he’s done. That’s what I said to him. He had to figure out for himself why he wanted to get punched in the head. He came back to the real motivation. It’s not money, it’s to excel in competition.”

The wisdom of Kavanagh is right there, and you can almost hear the conversation between fighter and coach as they talk, and plot, and plan. Kavanagh always knew McGregor was special, and together they realized his potential. Exponentially, of course, they both grew.

“He always had a personality and charisma that was going to make him very popular,” he recalls. “But I don’t think he ever sat down and mapped things out. I know good marketing people and they study the market and have a plan. He didn’t have any of that, he was just himself and that happened to be a marketing giant.”

Is Conor the most special fighter ever?

“Yes, there’s no question about that. I remember once Randy Couture was listing off all the things you need to make a star in fight sports. You need a good work ethic, people have got to be interested in you, you can’t be bad looking and then be witty on the mic. No one has them all, but Conor has. I don’t know if we’ll ever see that again.”

Without Kavanagh, though, steady at the tiller, wise in times of stress, an ever-present in the corner, McGregor might never have been as big as he is – nor Kavanagh as celebrated. They have proven to have the perfect sporting symbiotic relationship. Oh to have the pairing back in action soon...