Kavanagh: McGregor nearly went off the rails

Kavanagh says that, after his loss to Sitenkov in 2008, McGregor stopped attending SBG and went missing for a few weeks. Concerned by his behaviour, McGregor’s mother, Margaret, called Kavanagh to try and get him to convince her son to return to training and steer him back on track.

Yeah (it was big). Maybe you and me wouldn’t be talking now (if it didn’t happen). At that stage, he’d already disappeared for four or six weeks. I kind of just moved on with what I was doing and sort of half forgot about him if I’m being honest. Over the years, I must have had what must be over tens of thousands of guys come through my doors at this stage. You get these little flames of enthusiasm and sparks of possibilities but then they fizzle out for the 99.9-per-cent. So, I think I was already putting him down to being one of those could’ve been type people. And maybe if I hadn’t of driven up that night to try give us one more chance, maybe he would’ve been a has been and be that guy on the bar stool talking about ‘I could’ve been that guy, I could’ve done this.’ So yeah, I’m glad his mother called me and I’m of course very happy that I went up there and we worked it out and he came back. And since then, we’ve been a fairly rock-solid team.