With a gigantic fight in the UFC lightweight division coming up this weekend between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson, most are expecting the winner of that bout, who will be crowned interim lightweight champion, to see Conor McGregor as their next opponent.
It is, of course, not as straight forward as that, as nobody knows what the Irishman's next move will be.
With so much noise surrounding a potential fight with Floyd Mayweather, and with McGregor currently taking time away from the sport for personal reasons, there is no indication where or when we will next see the lightweight (and featherweight as he would be keen to point out) champ in the octagon.
When that does happen, there are once again many options in terms of opponent, and speaking to Submission Radio [via MMAFighting.com] McGregor's coach John Kavanagh, after admitting that he has no clue what the status of McGregor vs Mayweather is (but predicting that the fight is looking likely), named the fights that interest him the most.
My number one thing would be for Conor to fight MMA. 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. I think Khabib does it, so I think Khabib will be the winner. 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 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 a par winner of Khabib/Ferguson.
Interesting.
If a third Diaz match was booked it would no doubt upset many fans and fighters who wish to see McGregor defend his belts, but we've how little that matters to both the UFC and Conor McGregor so it will always be a possibility. Diaz would certainly be on board too as he seemingly doesn't want to fight anyone else.
The winner of Khabib/Ferguson is probably the fight the fans would like to see most, simply as whoever comes through that will have run through the lightweight division and if that is the weight McGregor is most comfortable with, then it makes sense to unify the belts. Kavanagh also admitted that he thinks the fight will definitely happen:
I find it hard to imagine not seeing that. You know, even with Conor getting the – if and when the Mayweather fight was to happen and he got that out of the way, I know, like myself, I do believe his true love is free combat sports and there is no freer combat sport than mixed martial arts and he is the UFC lightweight champion. He did only win it a couple of months ago, so he is the lightweight champion. So I can’t imagine him not fighting the winner of [Nurmagomedov-Ferguson]. We gotta see what happens with the Mayweather talks and all that, but yeah I do believe that will happen, yes.
The GSP fight will be difficult given the confirmation that the Canadian legend will fight Michael Bisping for the middleweight title, but a welterweight matchup between the too would be plausible depending on how that goes.
We'll wait and see, hopefully we'll have some concrete news on what happens next one way or another.
