John Kavanagh on Vegas date and Jose Aldo – “His time is up”

It has been a memorable few years for John Kavanagh. The SBG head coach has brought martial arts from nowhere in Ireland and masterminded a mass movement of MMA fighters into the UFC. His charges have not only won UFC contracts, they have also been successful in most of their fights after signing. Today, with his star pupil Conor McGregor on the brink of a world title fight against Jose Aldo, Kavanagh sat down with SevereMMA’s own Andrew McGahon to discuss Aldo, the fight and the confusion over the date.

After appearing on Newstalk breakfast earlier this week, mass hysteria ensued when Kavanagh mentioned the title fight between Conor McGregor and UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo could be set for later in the year after a May date had been initially slated. Today he tried to clear up the confusion.

“It’s up in the air about what date the fight is on.” Kavanagh told SevereMMA. “There’s nothing 100% yet. I was getting so many messages that I felt like I had to say it (a date for McGregor vs. Aldo) has NOT been set yet. If it’s not on UFC.com, it’s not set. It might be May, it might not be. It might be later in the summer, it might not be.”

“Who knows, they might announce it this weekend. Conor’s doing a Q&A in Vegas so it could be announced then.”

With that settled, Kavanagh now has his mind set on McGregor’s next opponent Jose Aldo who he feels is coming to the end of his reign as the first and only ever UFC featherweight champion.

“No disrespect, I think Aldo has been a fantastic champion, but his time is up.” Kavanagh said. “I think it’s going to be pretty one sided. It’s almost as though he (Aldo) has made a career out of beating small wrestlers that are learning striking… and he’s done it brilliantly.”

“He is very, very fast, he has a nice 1-2, he’s got a decent lead left hook and, of course, he’s got pretty decent kicks – not that he’s been doing a huge amount of them lately. He is brilliant at using that against guys like team-alpha male guys that he can intimidate with his striking and who will shoot from the other side of the cage.”

“He’s not going to have that advantage with Conor.” Kavanagh went on to say. “He’s in against somebody that I believe is a better striker, who hits a hell of a lot harder than him.”

“In his last couple of fights he hasn’t stopped people. He went 25 minutes in his last one (against Chad Mendes). He landed some decent shots against Chad… and didn’t put him down.”

“When Conor lands, people go down. You just have to look at the stats, I don’t think anyone can take his shots.”

“He (Aldo) was hit a lot by Chad Mendes who is learning striking, you wouldn’t call him an elite level striker. He (Mendes) landed a lot of power strikes on Aldo. I just think when Conor lands a power strike, well I don’t think, I know, look at the stats I’m not trying to convince anybody, when he lands a power strike it’s over.”

“He (Aldo) has had so many hard, hard fights. Even that last fight, you can’t recover from that… and he’s had a bunch of those wars. You only have so many of those in you.”

“Now he’s in against a guy with an awkward stance, who’s not intimidated, that’s going to come forward and when he hits, he hits like a train.”

“I don’t see it going any way other than a pretty one sided fight.”