John Kavanagh says Conor McGregor approaching Dustin Poirier trilogy “with an MMA mentality”

Conor McGregor is changing his approach and mentality ahead of his trilogy with Dustin Poirier.

At UFC 257, Poirier evened the score as he earned a second-round knockout over the Irishman. Given the fact, they are now 1-1 against each other, with both wins coming by knockout, it makes sense to do the trilogy. According to Kavanagh, the goal remains the same of having that fight take place in the summer.

“He is in great spirits, well he actually sold the spirits so he is in really good financial spirits. He is just looking forward, I’m hoping we can get that rematch done in the summer,” Kavanagh said to BT Sport of McGregor-Poirier 3. “I’m not exactly sure, I don’t involve myself in the management side of things. We wanna get that one back, gotta figure out these fricking calf kicks, how to use them and defend them. We’re pretty confident we have that sorted out now. He looked excellent everywhere else. Give us a rematch, and we have the rematch, I feel.”

Entering the trilogy, the big question will be, can Conor McGregor check the leg kicks. According to John Kavanagh, they believe they have found the answer and that started with going back to an MMA mentality instead of a boxing mentality.

“It definitely has an effect, would it have had enough of an effect to change that fight? I don’t think so. Fair play to Dustin and Mike (Brown) and the guys,” Kavanagh said of Conor McGregor’s loss. “Even when he was getting clocked, he got hit a couple of times hard but he still didn’t start getting into a trading war or try and gas himself out trying for takedowns. He had this plan, that he had the check hook and they had had the calf kick and they were just going to keep doing it and hope it would work, and it did.

“I don’t think any amount of pre-fight shenanigans would’ve changed that or any interview requests or any screaming fans,” Kavanagh continued. “We have to fix that technical detail, which it’s not like having to fix everything, it’s fixing a small enough area. Get that back into the whole game, not going in with a sort of with a boxing mentality, going in with an MMA mentality.

“Conor was always famous for his movement, his ability to change stances, his bounce as he would say. We got to bring that back. It’s there, it’s under the hood, it’s not skills that have to be learned or relearned, they just have to be re-ignited,” Kavanagh concluded about McGregor’s training for Poirier. “We have already started that process. So, wouldn’t it be great to do it again in the summer, maybe in Vegas in front of 20,000 screaming people if we can get the world back open again.”

As of right now, the trilogy between McGregor and Poirier has not been booked. But, it is likely to happen this summer.

What do you make of John Kavanagh’s comments about Conor McGregor?