Coach Kavanagh says McGregor’s biggest mistake was pushing too hard in the early stages of the fight against Mayweather, and succumbing to fatigue before being stopped in the tenth round. McGregor admitted that his inability to effectively manage his energy reserves played a big part in his loss.
We had also been inefficient with our energy by throwing a lot of shots in the first minute of each round, most of which Floyd caught on his gloves and forearms. When we faced that style last year against Nate — walking down, hands high — we had more success because the smaller gloves in MMA can fit through the gaps…We had also practiced a lot of hand-fighting and rotating elbows over the guard for that fight, as well as the low-kick. Obviously, those techniques aren’t options in boxing. But that’s eventually what wore Conor down. He sort of punched himself out a little bit and got caught with some shots towards the end. The referees are a little quicker to stop fights in boxing too, as opposed to what we’re used to in MMA. Having agreed to fight under boxing rules, we have no argument with that. I think it was in the fourth or fifth round when Floyd switched styles and he almost took the Nate Diaz approach of just walking forward and covering up. Conor called him ‘a Mexican’, which was a reference to the style of boxing. It’s even more effective in boxing than it is in MMA because you can catch more of your opponent’s shots on the bigger gloves. That he decided to go down that route genuinely surprised me. It’s an approach I’ve seen him use extremely rarely. I guess it was a display of both experience and technical nous — he was able to switch between styles until he found the one that worked best for him
